Mass Effect:  Cyan Steel
by CaliforniaTD
Summary: Set six years before the original Mass Effect, an elite crew of mercenary pirates are commissioned by the Citadel Council to locate a line of deadly turian weapons, believed to have fallen into the hands of the Blue Suns. Rated M: Violence, Language, Sex.
1. Prologue

**Software – Kassa Fabrication 450 T  
>Date: 314/2177  
>Encryption Code: -<br>Product Registered to: Brooklyn Seltzer  
>Status: Off the Record<br>Title: On Burke**

**A pane of glass lasts a lengthy amount of time, provided some malevolent force has not tampered with it. I suppose that's exactly what time is: a rancorous, malignant scope of chronology that wears down everything that dwells within its synapse.**

**I am no philosopher, but I'd warrant that time batters and smashes the people who outlast its weathering. People like Burke Craddock. Yet people such as Burke fascinate me. His body bruised, and his mind flayed in various methods, yet his spirit still carries his battered self over its ethereal shoulder. If Burke is a pane of glass, he's a stalwart one.**

**Burke. You've been tricked, and you've been deceived, time and time again. You blame both your enemies, and the ones who employ you, and don't acknowledge the fact that I am indirectly responsible for what happened to your family. If I told you I do not know how you would react, finding out the woman you love has a few suspicious bones dug under the ground. Would you forgive me? Would you turn your gun on me?**

**I am too timid to find out. I hope one day you will, though I admit, I am not sure I will be the one to tell you. I could be living the biggest mistake ever.**

**I really, really don't kno**

**LOG SENT TO: DELETED**

_ 

_In 2177, the Systems Alliance was still recovering from the assault  
>on the human colony of Elysium, by a faction of mercenaries and privateers from<br>the Terminus systems, a gruesome battle following in its wake. Because of  
>transgressions such as this, the cold war between the Citadel Council and the<br>Terminus Factions is a powder keg waiting to ignite, and political tensions were  
>at an all time high.<em>

_Both sides wished to avoid open war at all costs, utilizing espionage and black  
>operations to peer into enemy operations and sabotage them. These were<br>carried out entirely by the most secret of agents, privateers, mercenaries, and freebooters._

_Commissioned by the Citadel Council, the privateer crew of the Panera, a  
>state of the art heavy fightercorvette, was one such operations cell. Highly paid  
>and supplied with the best of gear, their assignments were always extremely<br>treacherous. Their latest task took them to the world of Golmes, located deep  
>in the terminus systems, where Citadel intelligence confirmed the existence of a<br>remote, but heavily fortified facility located along the planet's equator…_


	2. Human Raindrop

Chapter 1 – Human Raindrop

The human's boots were camped on the brink of the closed ramp, the turian no more than a few feet behind him. The interior of the heavy fighter hissed as the compartment's environmental regulators were negotiating with the atmosphere's pressure.

The two species located in the cramped lower chamber were shaped quite differently, though their armor matched in color and material, reflecting a coarse olive, or aquamarine as the lights in the chamber were a scorching light blue. Their helmets were closed, their respirators already functioning, and interior interfaces glowing within their visors.

"You two check your equipment, will you?" A distinctly feminine voice requested on the intercom. The human lifted his arms to the sides as he felt the turian fidget with the weapons and chute pack. Two gentle smacks on the back of his helmet signified that he would have to return the favor.

He span around and placed two gloved hands on the turian's tactical rifle, pushing with one and pulling with the other, noticing it was well in place. He checked to see if there were any indents with the pack, and there were none to be found. He gingerly smacked the turian on his armored cuspate head and about faced to the ramp, the turian following suit.

"You got about ten seconds, your barn doors better be shut tight!" The intercom cracked.

The ramp cracked and shook, wobbling as it dragged along the air. The interior lights switched to a dim red and the night sky's clouds below them began to formulate into their vision, bursting with electrical discharges which impacted in the distorted ground below. The ramp was finally open completely, his toes just short of the exterior atmosphere. The eeriness of the view and sound were marveled and savored by both of them.

The intercom buzzed loudly. "Have a nice landing guys, bail, bail, bai-"

Burke Craddock had already launched himself into mid air before Brooklyn Seltzer had finished blabbering the commands to commence the HALO jump. The wind throttled into his body, his legs in hook shapes as he adjusted his feet above his torso, and his hands and arms over the sides of his head as if he was some sort of malevolent warlock waiting to cast a hex. A feeling of natural and unserious anxiety swept down his vagus nerve, his stomach clenching itself together, and his knees and nether region quivering. The sensation would dissipate a few hundred more feet as he fell from the muggy heavens of Golmes.

His visor flashed statistics and reports as the clouds below drew closer with every passing moment, the upper right corner counted how far he was from the surface in meters, directly below was a helix that was constantly climbing, flanked by tiny digits. On the bottom of his view were six light blue vertical bars indicating the strength of his kinetic combat barrier, or shields.

_7000 meters._

His turian friend was falling almost twice as fast as he, and Burke only had to lift his head slightly higher to see a lopsided wireframe square that the visor marked him as. This maneuver most likely due to the shape of his species, as well as stiffening his posture to fall quicker.

The clouds below were closer than ever, and there was a blinding flash of white light directly below the turian before he disappeared beneath the blanket of condensed mist. He had just narrowly avoided getting point blanked by a lightning bolt, and would no doubt boast about it later on.

Craddock immersed himself into a thinner spot in the clouds, praying that he would not get electrocuted. He was well aware that his outfit undertook assignments that would make even the hardiest gunpowder eating, hot sauce drinking pirate cringe. Another flash caused him to flinch in fear, though to his luck, this bolt of lightning struck far in the distance.

Wisps of moisture caked his visor and suit, becoming completely wet upon the hydro retardant armor. At the moment, Craddock had no reliable sight of the world around him, but he could feel and notice the hydroponic cells of the saturated cloud were beginning to become too weighty as he neared the bottom.

And so he emerged from the innards of the storm, plummeting from the clouds like a drop of human precipitation. As was programmed and scripted prior to the mission, his helmet's software switched to its image intensifier. The swamp, most of its trees and the mucky water glowed a visible lime green as the night vision saturated the visor. A red marker in the center of the screen span clockwise, a sign of the rendering objective tag. It disappeared, followed by a red "" marker that straddled the batarian staging area below. If it were not for these software accessories, it would be horribly difficult to see where his target was. The rainstorm gave them feasible cover, but it certainly worked the other way around.

The upper right section of the Heads-Up-Display hit the 2000 meter mark. He had to admit, he was always a little nervous when he came that close to the ground, and it did not assuage the feeling to know that he had to drop 1800 more of these standard units of measurement to open his chute as was the norm with a HALO jump.

The installation was stuck at the base of a small mountain and hedged the lowlands, in between several holes and pools of scummy water. There were two primary structures total that stuck out of the ground, one being the primary staging area, and the other the garrison. The secondary and tertiary structures marked watch towers, pillboxes, and various automated anti aircraft batteries. To their luck, the ship he had dropped from was flying far too high, and the AA guns were not designed for targeting and obliterating low opening paratroopers, who were a dying breed. It was the perfect insertion plan, foolproof.

His visor flashed a hellish white for a brief moment, burning into his retinas. He clenched his eyelids shut, and shook his head slightly. Bright lights were famously blinding with amplified night vision, and atmospheric discharges were no exception.

_1300 meters._

He spotted the turian's marker somewhere east and it was quite clear he had already opened his chute, judging by the speed of his fall and the fact that he was steering his position. It was quickly nearing the time for Burke to open his own as well, and he placed his right hand over his shoulder.

The base was as clear as he could see it in an aerial view. The inner base was no more than a square kilometer or two. A sizable, breadbox shaped installation was in the center, surrounded by water. Over these bodies of swampy water were several low hanging bridges no more than a few meters long, just enough to guide themselves to the landing pads. The occasional poor batarian blighter that was unfortunate enough to be commissioned to guard duty for such a foul night was seen, tiny as ants from where he was standing. All in all, Burke counted two so far.

_260 meters._

Burke toiled on the cord, the top making a noiseless burst as the state of the art chute lunged out of the pack. It blossomed like a daffodil, the air around it being ambushed by the aerodynamics. Craddock's torso swung forward almost violently, his legs following suit and dangling. He grasped the two steering straps at the flanks of the pack and yanked the starboard side, leading him toward the mountain. He sighed in a burst of relief, the most difficult part seemingly over.

His plan was to circle around at the available blind spots of the base and land at the top of the main installation. Though the storm had drawn the water level higher than it should have been, and the metal gangplanks were slick with rain and swamp water that had sloshed upon the surface. He was now close enough for his visor to mark red triangles over any signature that was not confirmed as his squadmate. In this case, there were four signatures that were immediately picked up. Two were on the ground, the rest were in towers or elevated positions.

There was another horrible blinding lightning flash that filled his visor, followed by a violent throttling and a deafening crack. His retinas slightly recolored the screen a light pink afterwards, and he noticed he began to fall faster than he already was.

Burke tasted vomit at the back of his throat, the hairs on the back of his neck snapping to a military attention. He looked up, seeing a hole the size of a basketball singed through his parachute. The burning had started to spread, but was getting doused by the rain.

Burke clenched his teeth together, yanking further on the port steering cord, then the starboard as he lined himself up on a soft spot on the mountain. The parachute began to tear under pressure.

_30 meters._

A crowbar would have to be used to pry both rows of his teeth apart from one another. At that very moment, it would have been suicide to open the emergency chute, as he was too close to the ground to jettison his current one. He swallowed hard and did the next best thing. He spread his armored legs and squeezed the emergency release as he neared the ankle of the mountainside.

He landed in a pile of earthen goo, the solid ground beneath him playing him like an accordian. He cursed himself for silently, as his mind began to clutch the fact that he was being carried away in a mudslide that he may have instigated. He rolled over once, and as his feet pressed against solid ground, he quickly sprung off the edge of a high ledge that lead to ground level.

His balance had faltered, and he spun in mid air as he plowed through the hollow branches of a dead tree, and eventually landed in a pocket of swampy water, a violent splash tearing the already tottery stability of the waterline, shortly before being beaten down by the heavy rain.


	3. Into the Breach

Chapter 2 - Into the Breach

The night vision allowed the murky water to be exposed, along with the strange and misshapen fish that dwell within it. His Mantis mark VI light combat armor was quite capable of toiling underwater for an hour or two, as it was also a pressure and wet suit.

He laid on a rock beneath the swamp, sitting up and reaching behind him and removing his pack entirely, noticing it had been chewed up by the slab of jagged stone. Afterward, he began to float up on his own, buoyancy playing its part.

He then kicked off and swam in the direction of his objective marker on the heads up display. He began to wonder if his turian partner had fared better in his journey to the surface, as well as evading the guards. Every earthen corner he swam around seemed to lead him in a maze of sorts, until he was certain he reached the mainland.

He popped his head free of the surrounding water, seeing the main structure in all its glory. His visor immediately marked a target that was no less than ten feet in front of him. He sunk his head halfway down, hoping that he would not get recognized. There was another lightning strike, and Burke clenched his eyes shut shaking his head about.

When he opened them he noticed the batarian before him had stepped to the edge of the ground, looking around under his tarp hood, clutching a sniper rifle in his hand. It was evident that Evan was safe from being located at least at the moment, though another lightning strike could very well give away his position.

He saw the ally marker on his screen appear to the south on top of the building, staying still for quite a while, even as the batarian sentry stood and began lighting a cigarette under his hood with an omni tool.

As diligently as he could, Burke moved to the side near a fallen tree, reaching for his assault rifle and pressing the assemble button. The weapon made a cracking sound, a telltale sign that something had jammed in the mechanism. At first, he thought the bog water had done something to its integrity, but upon closer inspection, he found that it had been horribly chewed up by the impact on the rock. Burke looked up, sweat beginning to accumulate upon the side of his jugular. Tingles went down his bicep as he mentally prepared himself to ambush and wrestle this four eyed alien.

There were muzzle flashes from the position of his squadmate, and the batarian was cut down, his face landing in the water while his feet rest on the muddy shore, twitching their last. Burke thought about waving to him, but he digressed. Instead, he packed up his assault rifle, strapping it to his armord back, and waded up toward the shore, grasping the corpse by its right armpit and holding his head underwater in case he still lived.

Gingerly the human moved toward the fallen tree, tugging the deceased batarian along the unsanitary tide and hiding his corpse under the tree. With time bought, he sprang up out of the water and crept up to the side of the building, just out of reach of one of the side lights. He checked his surroundings, grasping his only functional weapon, an Elanus "Striker" Mark VIII heavy pistol.

With his left hand he produced his virtual Bluewire omni tool, and tapped a frequency in. This was dangerous, considering that omni tools had the tendency to glow, and thus were not too handy for night operations. He held the tool in front of him, the lights on the side of the building beginning to flicker, dim, and finally fizz out.

He was already on the move, climbing atop a garbage bin and scaling a gutter. Burke rarely showed or admitted it, but he was an expert acrobat. He rarely got the chance to show such a feat off, but this was an exception. The climb itself would have been impossible without the indention on the sides of the walls, which were plentiful. More than once did he find his feet and hands slipping, but fortunately, only one appendage went rogue at a time.

He grasped the ledge and railing, rolling over the side and breathing a sigh of relief. He stood up, checking the surroundings and spotting a rather enlarged objective marker, right on the quick cargo chute before him. He crept up to the chute, tapping in its key button and opening the covered entrance. Lastly, he hopped inside, closing the shutter and tapping the cargo lift button to the first story.

The shutter door opened, revealing much what he expected, and partly what he did not expect the interior architecture to look like. Directly outside of the chute's exit was an out of order vending machine, two benches, and an extranet terminal. It was strange having a break area in the main operations area, especially on this floor. The area had a greenish tint, especially from one of the junctions that possibly led to another room. What was causing the green glow, he knew not.

His legs hung out, and he gingerly he stepped out, careful now that the lights had shone on him. He had discarded his helmet, disassembling and compacting it and placing it over his tailbone. The barrel of his pistol was pointed to wherever his direct line of sight wandered.

Burke was hairy man well into his thirties, brandishing a pair of distrusting brown eyes, dirt brown hair, and a full beard almost thick enough to absorb a blow to the chin. He stood six feet and two inches in height, his skin a slightly bumpy complexion. His green armor was currently coated with other green natural materials, and he noticed he was tracking mud into the building, the soles of his boots squeaking with every step he took. Beyond him he heard the voices of batarians muttering in their own language.

Chary, he rifled against the wall and peeked around the corner, unhesitatingly in awe at the absurdity of the sight. Apparently the cargo chute, the break room and the outpost operations center were connected to one another with no doors or security checkpoints along the routes. Either the batarians had concentrated most of the budget to perimeter defense, or they simply did not believe that it was possible that their stronghold would be compromised and infiltrated.

The room glowed a yellowish green from the various consoles and workstations. Two batarians hunched over the main map, blathering in their trade language or possibly their regional dialect. His turian partner was the one who happened to be the expert on alien lexicon, though he was nowhere to be found at the moment.

He was not sure if either of them were armed, so he stepped into the room in full view, beginning to initiate his own room-clearing tactic. The batarian he approached from behind was still speaking to the other and looking at the flat atlas, the latter catching sight of Burke and slowly craning his arm toward his pistol.

The encounter was over in a matter of seconds, both batarians neutralized as a result of a shot through the head. For Burke Craddock, luck was involved, since he was not exactly the best of marksmen. When it came to combat, he preferred to have as little distance between he and his adversaries as possible. What he excelled in though, was tactics, especially the small non-industrial weight endeavors such as covert operations.

His eyes scanned the available computer consoles, a menacing green saturating the room itself. He chaperoned alongside some until he spotted the correct one. With a few taps onto the screen, he shut off the automated anti aircraft batteries entirely. The foolish batarians did not even bother to password lock the cannons, something he had the proper countermeasures ready in his omni-tool for.

He then began downloading the schematics of the base from another console, which also was not encrypted. Afterwards, he withdrew himself, his pistol in hand and headed into the appropriate direction.

_

The elevator hummed to a stop, its double doors hissing in their crevices as they spread apart, revealing the underground interior of the outpost. Burke squeamishly peeked his head around each corner, hearing distant sounds of mass batarian chatter, all deep and firm lipped.

The halls were a dusty gray, unkempt and mostly unwashed. His pistol was held forth as he hiked along the vestibules. Three of the four-eyed aliens, all unarmed passed by, laughing and jesting to themselves in their own tongue, Burke hid behind a trolley full of crates and waited for them to stray out of sight. Quickly, he continued his pace. His omni tool flashed the base schematics, detailing that he was indeed, close to his destination.

He sidestepped along the walls, a door made mostly of glass just to his left. A brow was exposed to peek into the area, a cafeteria full of batarians gorging away at their dinner. He quickly sprinted past it with his head hung low and his at his right hip. One of the storage rooms was just ahead, and he placed one hand on the glowing center panel, the blast door creaking open with a mechanical motion.

He closed the door behind him and rolled his eyes over canyons of crates and barrels. Burke's back lurched forward and he crept around the area, seeing missives and manifests on top of the nearest cartons. Slowly, he reached for one of the glowing data pads, his fingers making contact with the thin material.

A cold, circular, metallic ring of metal made contact with the back of his neck, firmly planting itself on his top vertebrae. "No need to check those logs." A harsh nasally voice pronounced. "There's absolutely nothing in there that's worth seeing by your devious human eyes… especially when they're rolled back in expression of death."

The gun barrel was removed from the back of his head, the voice immediately replaced by throes of puckish cackling. Burke slowly turned, crossing his arms and staring at a laughing turian. "If you're making jokes on an assignment like this, there's obviously something funny about what you found, Darius." He retorted with his gravely brogue.

Darius Macerdin cleared his throat and shifted his weight, adjusting the sights on his tactical hybrid rifle. "Well, I've always wanted to do that to you anyway."

"Spill the beans, did you find anything in this shithole or not?" The bearded human retorted, taking a few steps to the side.

The turian's posture stiffened. "It may be a bit on the momentary side, but yes, right this way."

Darius followed his human squadmate closer down the rows of stacked and shelved containers. "So what happened to you on the jump? Were there, er… complications?"

"There was a complication that landed smack in the kisser." Burke informally replied.

"You mean your parachute?"

Burke's head swirled toward the turian. "If you knew why did you ask?"

"I heard it through the begrimed and profane grapevine of batarian gossip when I was doing the vent shaft shuffle in the garrison."

"Yeah, you'd be the one to listen. I still feel like I'm damned lucky the material the parachute was made out of didn't conduct electricity."

"That you are. Except that they thought it was one of the local razorbirds that got clipped by that thunderbolt. By the time I stole the keycard, I could still hear them arguing about whether or not they actually flew in the rain."

"Glad to hear it." Burke chuckled. "What's this keycard for again?"

They both came to an unsettling clearing in the massive storeroom. There were several shelves and racks of boxes, rows upon rows that were completely empty in the particular section they were in. Burke stopped altogether and marveled at the ghostly feel of the place.

"I did some brief spelunking into the logs and ledgers just before you stepped in here." Darius stepped in front of Burke, his eyes scanning the ceiling in a circular motion. "I confirmed the fact that this place used to be a VIP shelter, likely for one of the more powerful terminus system factions."

"That's what the floor plan I installed on my omni tool seems to say." He spoke, bringing it up again with a flick of a wrist. "The bottommost floor is labeled VIP quarters."

"Good find." Darius nodded, peeking at the plan. "The datapads also stored some cryptic info."

There was a period of silence that lasted a portion of a minute before Burke broke the silence. "My guess is that the info was censored by batarian higher ups." He inspected one of the racks. They were shaped and sized to where they seemed like something one would see in a supermarket. "So, were our suspicions confirmed?"

"Yeah. If these guys aren't small time interstellar terrorists, they're obviously big time smugglers. Maybe both." Darius spoke up, turning around and still marveling at the scene. "A massive shipment was made. Whatever was here before, was a lot of important and scary stuff, and if we were here 32 hours ago we would have seen what it was." He looked back at his human squad mate. "I suggest we try to bag up all the intel we can find and get starside asap."

"You never told me what the key was for." Burke smirked.

Darius drew closer to Burke and pointed at his open omni tool map. "Mr. Craddock, I think they're hiding something really damned important down in the main VIP quarters, and I think it will help us out a hell of a lot if we find it."

The five were gathered inside the "y" shaped VIP interior chamber, the atmosphere thick with cigar smoke that was puffed from the mouth of one of the four eyed beings, one with a reddish tint who sat at the massive desk. Two leaned against the desk, one an obese, puffy faced batarian and the other a human in maize yellow armor. Two guards with assault rifles stood at each of the doors that led to the elevator lobby and security checkpoint.

"I was promised to have a hearing with the staff." The human barked. His worn yellow armor was stamped with a circular insignia resembling a burning sphere, a thin 'E' drawn within its unfilled center. "Instead you try to manipulate me with alcoholic spirits and cigars. We had a deal Aiorni!"

"Quit making violent hand gestures." The fat batarian requested. "It makes me want to reach for my pistol when you flail your arms about."

The human turned to him, a look of sublime anger plastered upon his face. "I wasn't-"

"Mr. Campbell, don't talk back to my chief of security." The seated batarian spoke in between draws on his cigar. "Help yourself to one of the drinks in the minibar and state your final terms. This is getting tiresome."

"Thank you general, but I won't be drinking for the next couple of hours." Campbell coarsely retorted, leaning back on the desk with both palms, giving the general a venomous glare that would have rusted metal. "That shipment you promised us... it was sent to someone else. Those are abysmal business tactics."

"You never paid. And we were offered a better deal." Aiorni retorted, reaching for the cigar cutter and fitting it onto the roasted tip, severing it from the unspent tobacco.

"Payment was not going to be in effect until an inspection of the equipment was made. The very reason I came here!"

"Listen Campbell…" The batarian began, standing up and placing the cigar back in his mouth, beginning to pace around the room. He was dressed in cheap heavy combat armor, with several commendation ribbons on the left side of his breastplate, most likely self-appointed. "…I'm a minuteman, not a businessman. But when I'm approached with 20% more credits than the offer prior, that's a profit I could not imagine anyone would decline."

A vein in Campbell's forehead bloated, though the rest of his face remained as it were before. "And you buy liquor and cigars… where's your caviar? Can I have some of that?"

The general's free hand retreated into a fist, trembling as his blood boiled with barely contained rage. He then opened his hand into a palm and placed his cigar on, putting it out. His face grew noticeably pained, though it was overshadowed by sheer petulance. He then flung the wand of tobacco at the human, the commodity ricocheting off his armored collar and landing at his feet.

"Don't you dare mock me, mercenary garbage. This contraband you see before you was a result of a bonus from our buyer." He stepped toward a bottle of purplish scotch, grasping it by the neck and hurling it into the floor, where it shattered in fragments of violet liquid and glass. He then lunged a scrawny finger, which boxed Cambell's armored chest with every word. "I sent 30% of the money we made to batarian colonial suffrage interests, to help starving and homeless migrants of my fellow race!" He retracted his stance slightly, panting heavily. "I'm not a goddamn pirate. I have standards and abide by a code of honor. I don't prey on the suffering, take oil baths, or fornicate with asari prostitutes on piles of credit chits. I fight for batarian freedom, against those who wrongfully seize it from us. To me, apart from my rank, the 190 men under my command are exactly the same as I, just with a bed that is not as wide as mine."

He turned his back to the armored ambassador, the chief of security had a smirk curled into his puffed cheeks, impressed with the speech of his sovereign. The two guards nodded to one another across the room in respect for their commander. The general continued shortly.

"The Systems Alliance is vehemently irritated by the Skyllian Blitz. They've already begun preparing for other assaults on our installations. Torfan, Getrowe, Romon Prime… they'll all fall like dominos in time. I need to prepare my militia. I need to give them better equipment, better extranet speed, more than two square meals a day, and trading rights with other cells. This is the best opportunity I could ever imagine…" He heaved a sigh. "Now… do you, or do you not have any additional terms for today?"

The desk's receiver beeped, signaling that one of the elevators to the VIP floor was being used. "Now who could that be, I told everyone that we were having a meeting." The security chief groaned.

"Better wrap this up then." The mercenary emissary's brows were in a limbo, his arms crossed. "Well, I suppose the least you can do is tell me who beat us to the draw."

"So you can seek them out and murder them and steal their possessions for yourself?" General Aiorni chuckled at the absurdity of the thought.

Campbell hissed in faint laughter. "Maybe. Especially if it's one of our competitors, what sort of terminus faction would have the money to intercept a shipment of armored-"

The right blast doors beeped, a telltale sign that the keycard was being used. The security chief approached the door, along with one of the rifle carrying sentries. The door hissed open.

"Who is i-"

A scatter blast from a hybrid rifle sent the fat, confused security chief reeling on his back, three bloody holes shredded into both sides of his shirt. Another blast was fired into the batarian who barely had a chance to lift his rifle, horribly mangling his face. He began collapse on his rump, his legs sliding forward as the life drained from his body, and his assault rifle hand clutching the trigger, sending stray rounds into the ground, which tore a myriad of holes into the floor.

The three survivors in the room fired back, the other batarian guard being the first as he lashed out with a volley of automatic fire. By the time Aiorni and Campbell had drawn their pistols, they were mashing rounds into a closed door.

The left door beeped as the keycard was used, opening 50% of the way as a disk was thrown into the room, skidding just near the desk. The door sealed before their fire could be shifted in time, and the disc exploded with a blinding flash of light, and a horribly deafening roar.

General Aiorni lay on the floor wounded. He did not hear or see much in the seconds following the blast. He felt several rounds riddle him, some piercing his armor and sinking into his flesh.

His vision cleared, and he was staring at a pair of mud stained boots. His ears began to hear again, the faint voices of a human and a turian.

Burke Craddock stood over the wounded batarian as he sat up and grabbed the edges of his desk, trying to lift himself up. The peripherals of his recovering vision caught glimpses of Campbell and the others lying in puddles of blood adorn the floor.

"Bedrooms are clear!" Darius called from one of the rooms in the back.

Aiorni remembered flailing his arms about when the flash occured, but he didn't think the pistol would land upon the desk. The upper pair of his eyes spotted it lying just in his reach. Burke's pistol pressed against the back of his skull. "Got any documents? Datapads? Info?" He piped in question. "Can you tell me what was shipped out of here?"

"Why don't you ask your human friends some questions…" Aiorni coughed as his wounds began to burn, and reached for his pistol, his fingers grasping the grip as he dragged it closer to himself. "Why am I here? What purpose do I serve aside from cheating other races out of their territory? Exploiting others… and harboring an embarrassing sense of entitlement." He lifted his pistol up with a trembling hand, slowly turning to face Burke.

He was answered with a shot through the side of his head, the exit wound smearing a shower of gore upon his desk before he slid off the side and into the floor.

"Well so much for bloody questioning him!" Darius griped, looking around the room for another solution.

"I'll check his desk, you check the bedrooms." Burke blinked his eyes, his forearm mopping a layer of sweat off his brow as he rounded about the corner. "Look at all this liquor and… elcor cigars." He chuckled, taking two of them, running them along his upper lip under his nose and placing them in a pocket on his shoulder.

As he heard his comrade rummaging through drawers and bed sheets in a dissonant manner, he circled the desk and peeked into the drawers, gathering their datapads and files and placing them in his back pocket. Something blue and circular caught his eye, and he stared at it for a bit. It was a button, obviously. Whether or not it was to signal the guards for help, he did not know, as it was not labeled as such. In fact, it was no labeled at all.

What did he have to lose? He rapped against it with his knuckle, and loud whirring of mechanical dynamos began to encompass his ears.

Burke peeked over the desk, and stood up slowly to see a section of the wall between the two doors and directly away from the center desk lift up. Darius poured into the room to see the commotion, staring at it, his mandibles twitching nervously.

The wall was inches thick in a heavy metal, in the interior inside this shell was throbbing with an eerie crimson light. When the wall finally receded into the ceiling, there was a chest high pedestal displaying a thin box that looked to be made of circuit board material, a handle located at the top of it.

The two approached the pedestal slowly. "You think we may have hit the jackpot, Darius?" Burke piped.


	4. Retreat to the Sky

Chapter 3 - Retreat to the Sky

The general alarm was already blaring as Burke and Darius ran down the halls to the second elevator that led to the surface. Confused batarians poured out of their quarters, ill prepared to the point where some were unarmed. A few saw the two intruders sweep by in a blaze of rapid moving leggings, hugging the elevator wall, Burke slamming on the elevator key while Darius pointed his hybrid rifle at a mass of five batarians standing in the middle of the hallway and staring. They all fell back to various sorts of cover. Eventually, the only two armed terrorists fired upon the duo with rifle and pistol, covering their unarmed cohorts to buy them time to visit the armory.

The duo had a ten-inch vestige of metal beaming for their cover, attached near the first elevator door. Both returned fire in a nonbelligerent fashion, Darius switching his rifle to the rapid automatic mode. The batarians may have had superior cover, but the two privateers were well protected by their military shielding units.

The stopping power from one of the batarian's pistols tipped Burke backwards for a few seconds, holding onto the wall and firing a total of eight more retaliatory shots until his pistol overheated. One of the shots passed through the pistol wielding batarian's fingers, severed the plastic grip from his firearm, into his arm, and ended up finally exiting out of his elbow. He retreated to a corner where he huddled and babysat his wound.

The elevator door finally opened, Burke smacking the turian upside the head even as he still fired. He turned his body and sped to the elevator, more assault weapon rounds impacting into his kenetic barrier before he stepped in.

The door closed and began to ascend, Burke bending over and placing his hands upon his knees, exhaling.

"I wonder why it took them so long to find the bodies? You never were very good at hiding them." Darius panted silently, a hint of laughter evident as he pat the strange red trinket at his side.

"Better question: What was an Eclipse mercenary doing there? Particularly a human…" Burke made a query, his face full and serious.

"Oh… that." Darius murmured. "As for being human, batarian terrorists have a tendency to be hypocritical. Hell, all terrorists do. They'll attach some strings that they could pull to anything, if it gives them an edge."

"Yeah, but Eclipse aren't known to be enthusiastic when dealing with terrorists."

"Smuggling, Burkey boy. All they have to do is play the business card and they get straight to the bee's wax. Street gangs do it quite often, even with their bitter enemies."

Burke huffed and stared into space for a bit as the elevator rose. He had a horrid look of void in his eyes, an expression of avidity of some sort. He pressed a gloved finger to his earpiece. "Brook, we need a pickup here… spot is as was planned."

There was a bit of silence. "Roger that, Burke. Out." A static voice hissed in his earpiece.

The elevator came to a stop, the door opening. "Also, don't call me Burkey boy. Brooklyn calls me that." Burke droned.

"Right, Mr. Craddock. Right." The turian nodded, darting out of the elevator and checking the perimeters. The hallways were filled with klaxons and spinning red lights. The two fled out, with intentions of reaching the top.

"Also, what happened to your Avenger?" Darius asked, eying his chewed up assault weapon.

Burke sighed. "Same thing that happened to my backpack."

There was the sound of approaching footsteps, even with the alarms groaning.

He set down his things. "Give me that thing." He asked pulling it free of his back. He flicked on his omni tool, tapping into its munitions and dynamos as he held it with one hand. He then placed a small sensor module near its trigger, and set in the middle of the floor.

"The old S.P.E.A.R. trick, eh?" Burke questioned, eying a staircase that led to the top.

"Damn right." He picked the circuit board box up, as well as his hybrid rifle, and the both fled into the staircase. A group of armored batarians caught sight of them and opened fire, not before the door closed.

They all poured apart, some going outside to cover the exits, and three others following the direct approached to the stairs. One spotted the black painted avenger rifle laying in the middle of the floor, and one broke formation to bend down and reach it. As his hand moved near it, the rifle made a flatlining beeping, lights flashing on designated spots, before it exploded in a mass of fire and weapon parts, sending two batarians flying and rolling about.

The batarian lieutenant filed out of the garrison in the pouring rain, flanked by four of his men, and another officer. "I swear, I tried to contact the general twice about the AA guns being shut down and password locked, but he had his damned transmitter shut off. Now we have one technician and one officer confirmed dead, and several missing! The hell are the odds, anyw-"

A ship roared overhead, several terrorists ducking to cover. Some even went as far as jumping off the step bridges and immersing themselves into the stingy swamp. The lieutenant, despite being incredibly straight-laced, did not blame them, as there was no telling if this small craft was going to lob bombs upon them or not.

Instead, the heavy fighter braked, swinging around until its port side faced the edge of the building, no more than a few feet away from it. The side door opened, and the commando duo was running to it in the slick rain. The batarians had begun to fire back, the kenetic barriers on the craft absorbing the small arms fire.

Darius threw the circuit box into the entryway, standing on the ledge, leaping and catching the edge of the door with his elbows and hands, attempting to pull himself up.

Burke was the second to jump, with far more skill and effectiveness. His feet landed just ahead of the turian's hands, and he squatted and lifted him up with both of his arms.

Brooklyn heard the door close behind them, the holographic images of shielding burned a hellish red, the kenetic barrier alarm beeping. Several clanking sounds began to pummel their hull like "Shields are down, let's get the hell out of here!" Brook yelled, slamming the throttle and peeling into the sky.

The batarians continued fire, the heavy weapons team not making it out in time as the ship banked through the clouds, never to be seen by them again. The lieutenant grit his razorlike teeth, squeezing the grip of his pistol hard enough where a popping sound was audible.

A batarian with a rocket launcher, fell in line in the front. "Is… is he gone?"

The lieutenant answered by shooting the soldier in the shin, promptly turning and striding away.


	5. Blue Ants

Chapter 4 - Blue Ants

The rusty interior of the decommissioned turian cruiser crooned and purred, the lights in the gangling hallways saturating triangular sections with a pale light. Most of the crew labored at their stations, but a minority patrolled or roused within them in singular instances.

Close to the bridge, the thriftless captain's quarters were powerfully out of place in the former military battleship; sporting wooden paneled walls, a bowl of alien fruits upon a table, suite lamps, a circular bed, and even a mirror ceiling. The ship's commander himself cloistered himself in the toiletry room, the bathwater running and filling near to the brim.

The turian stood at the edge, his blue and white armor sporting gold spaulders and the appropriate badge of rank. His skin was a brownish red, showing several battle marks on his facial shell, and an amulet made of silver or onyx was almost always seen wrapped around the front of his head.

General Ukoirnas switched off the faucet, the water swilling and stilling itself within the porcelain shell. The turian turned, grabbing a bail of datapads, omni tools, and computers, and dumped the contents into the water. There were several electric, static, and conventional discharges, popping bits of water about the bathroom as the trinkets sputtered and died a quick death.

In a military manner, he articulately performed an about-face and strut out the length of his quarters, heading toward drop hangar B.

The crowd of Blue Suns troopers and technicians fashioned a circle inside the hangar, sitting atop the wings of gunships and maintenance, and staring at the spectacle before them. A human and a shirtless batarian fought one another in a challenge of fists. The gawkers around them cheered and placed bets on each of the combatants.

For the past minute or two, they had been sparring and dancing around one another, their knuckles making contact with guarded prose and occasionally, the face of their assailant. Now they had grappled one another, attempting to seize their footing and pin each other to the ground with the occasional kick to the stomach. This contest of brute force was not of typical emotion passion or materialized from usual provocation. It was how the Blue Suns acted, as they were simply that physically and violently inclined. Quarrels and fights were means of normal communication within the paramilitary company's ships and garrisons, and that was a single reasons out of many, as to why the Blue Suns were commonly labeled by typical galactic citizens as "philistine" or "barbarians", and even "animals".

The door at the far crust of the room slid open, the very presence of the general who entered through it sending all of the suns into a stiffened posture, a disciplined manner, and occasionally a military salute. Even the two combatants climbed to their feet, dabbing their bruises with the backs of their hand and standing firm.

Ukoirnas stopped at the edge of the circular crowd and nodded to his loyal subordinates, pacing along the lines at the toes of his men. "Let us cut the red tape and get straight to the point. We near our objective, prepare for battle."

The order was extreme in promptness, and the general was already making a beeline toward the door. The men did not hesitate a second, and each of them raced to their positions, readying the dust off crafts and inspecting the equipment.

The select few were heading toward the drop pods with their incredibly special equipment ready for them within.

Batarian major Yardie hailed the presence of the general with a salute as Ukoirnas filed in through the door. The bridge officers tapped away at their stations, the engineering pit inhabited by sweating code monkeys and console tech officers, who mostly human and turian females. The higher section was inhabited by the navigators, forward gunners, pit bosses, and the female turian helmsman. All were dressed in full Blue Sun "Solar" Mark III medium armor, smacking away at their holographic keyboards and workstations.

All five of the Blue Suns ships entered the Gargon system's relay, reflecting in their usual flamboyant blue and white colors. The three frigates, the light cruiser "Method" and the general's heavy cruiser "Maul" neared the mostly icy world of Sargonis.

Within the bridge, Ukoirnas stood no more than three feet away from the window viewport after its shield doors slid open. The sight of the bluish ball of snow and ice was magnificent, though he always had adopted an affinity to the sights of space and astronomy.

He shifted his sight to Yardie, who stood behind, punching some notes into a datapad. "You know for certain that everyone is at their stations?"

Yardie nodded. "I checked on them myself, sir. Went to every hangar and all the quarters, companies Alfa through Kilo. Spoke with every single one of the XOs." He looked ahead to the planet. "I manage to them that we're still in Terminus system space."

Ukoirnas bared the turian equivalent of a smile and pat the batarian on each of his shoulders. "That… is precisely why you're my second in command." He put all of his weight into a full embrace toward the major. Yardie was one of few officers Urkoirnas truly adored and trusted, and was satisfied with his proof of being a highly competent officer. Yardie though was quite modest, brandishing an ego the size of an acorn.

"Get me the fleet." Ukoirnas removed his embrace lock and withdrew his stance to walk to the communications officer, tapping the receiver button and communicating to his crew. "Now here this, now here this. Crew and troopers of the Cyan Flotilla, beyond this moment there is no going back. Mr. Santiago and the rest of the directors have labeled us as partisans and renegades. Such angry pouting is nonsensical by every default, as we represent the last true life of the intrepid spirit of the Blue Suns. Vido has gotten coarse and spineless, seeking to profit for a sedentary operations rather than fully strengthening our organization. We are soldiers, not mercenary whores! You… and those standing beside you… keep in mind that they are the only ones you can truly call Blue Suns.

"Let me also remind you that now that you have set foot on these ships, there is absolutely no going back. We stand or fall together in this campaign.

"And what a better way to start than with a fine ribbon cutting of sorts. Today we will test our new weapons, manned by the best of you; those who have so quickly trained and fit into the steel chassis of the suits. Today is where history is made with us. We will leave no structure standing, and no inhabitant drawing breath. Carry out your duties, that is all."

He nodded to the communications officer, then to Yardie. "Give the order."

Yardie nodded, hiding his intense reluctance to do so.

The sky was never this clear… it was the perfect morning.

The turian child sped across the blanketed white moor, his father calling for him to return. He mentally banished his voice, leaping and rolling in the snow. His father was not far behind, following the tracks of his son.

"Arki! There you are." He sighed, running toward him. The turian child merely sat up, confounding that the magic of the moment was liquidated.

His father sat in the snow beside him, playfully laughing and nudging him. "I know you'd love to play around out here some more, but today is a school day."

"I know." The child sighed, standing up and eying the sky. His tiny mandibles flung backwards as he swore he spotted a shooting star hurl from the sky.

The father saw it too, lifting the kid up and holding him at shoulder level. They both stared wordlessly, seeing others plummet from the skies as well. One appeared in the atmosphere, this one brighter than the others.

The drop pod impacted on the ground, no more than ten feet away from them. The force sent them hurling backward, rolling across the snow and sending bits of ice fluttering everywhere like loose change.

The child clamored to his feet, the father leaping up and shielding him as the door to the pod swung open, crushing the snow under it. Darkness resided in the chamber for several seconds before the burst of jets lit the interior up, four massive brutish looking humanoids made of steel burst forth, ascending in an organized manner.

The air was drawn out of their lungs at the shock of the sight, the father quickly scooping up his son and sprinting back down toward the city. A volley of rockets was fired, the air whistling as the projectiles hissed and burst on contact with the two, leaving none but steaming chunks and torn clothing separating from the impact site.

The trooper within the advanced prototype armor released his finger from the trigger, leaning forward on the throttle and following his armored cohorts to the small city that lay before them, more troopers pouring out of the heavens, and several bursts of fire and smoke formulating, panicked shrieks of the local populace saturating the air due to the horrid massacre that was currently taking place.


	6. Brass Tacks

Chapter 5 - Brass Tacks

The sky cab's engines whirred like a timid blender within the chassis, the multi colored lights of the Citadel swirling past with elegant flares upon the glass. Other sky cars sped by in a controlled manner. Brooklyn Seltzer marveled at the spectacular visuals of such an epically proportioned space station, a comprehensive emotion sweeping through just to know that this long sky car trip was going to take them merely around three one-thousandths of its span. The lights reflected upon her dark brown eyes, her dyed copper hair tied into a bow at the back, her partial oriental ancestry showing in her facial structure. She was dressed in a black leather jacket, a blue undershirt, and fingerless gloves. Her legs were covered with blue naval trousers and field boots that she bought at a military surplus store a year prior.

Burke sat beside her, leaning back, his head resting against the leather seating, his eyes barely closed. He had trimmed his beard in the slightest for the current hearing. He was clad in an unremarkable shirt and trousers, and a black wool long coat. The rear passenger seats faced one another, Darius sitting across from him, dressed in an orange turian leisure suit.

The volus pilot leaned forward as the communicator on the bright blue dashboard flashed with the occasional red. "Citadel Transit, Car 327 here".

"This is the council guard echelon, you are nearing the councilor apartments, identify and confirm your business and clearance, or you will be turned back." The voice of a salarian crackled over the transmitter.

The volus did not respond, merely tapping in the codes that his passengers gave him and uploading them to the salarian.

There was a brief instance silence, the communications officer responding after a few seconds. "Verified. It seems that the Asari councilor has been expecting your passengers, Car 327. Council Guard out."

"Same to you, asshole." The volus hissed in his environment suit, pulling the throttle back and slowing the vehicle down as it neared the parking area of the councilor apartments.

The car hovered over its landing area, slowly descending as the cross shaped signal lights on the underside flashed red, running down the lines and into the center. The vehicle eventually touched down, and inside, Darius and Brooklyn stepped out, being eyed by three asari commandos with black armor and assault weapons. Burke had leaned forward, transferring the cab fare from his omni tool, and tipping him to remain there until the meeting was adjourned.

They approached the entrance of the lavish interior parking garage, the forward asari nodding to them and beckoning them to follow.

_

The three edged fan at the ceiling of the lounge span counter clockwise, moving no more than a few miles per hour. The area sported yellow carpet that seemed to shine, and several sofas and ottomans, and a bar area. It seemed that in every corner there was a vintage vase, a piece of abstract art, or some sort of potted plant. Outside every door to the lounge, there were two guards flanking it. This types of meetings were supposed to be as secret as feasibly possible.

The human bar maid even warned them that if they wanted a drink, they would have to place an order quickly, because as soon as the councilor arrived she would be asked to become scarce. Brook had already ordered a glass of Heighliner, a popular human beer among spacers and colonists. Darius had brought forth a glass of green turian wine in one hand. In his other, he brought a glass of "Goddess Tears", a cocktail that combined common asari rum, and a sports drink like Paragade or Tupari.

He set them down on the coffee table, Burke leaning over and grabbing the glass of goddess tears and swirling it around with the tiny straw. "You know…" Brooklyn broke the silence with a firm whisper. "I didn't think an important meeting with one of the most powerful persons in the galaxy would turn into a cocktail party so quickly."

"We've been gone for a while and this is the first decent drink we've had." Darius piped, sipping the moss green wine. "It adds up to the fact that we're privateers. Practically legitimized pirates. It's in our nature to consume copious amounts of alcohol and sing songs about space battles."

Burke had already hammered down one third of his drink, placing it back on the table. "Yeah, except what kind of horrible space shanties are we good at singing?"

"None." Brooklyn added, sending all three of them in a crescendo of laughter. The rearmost door swung open, revealing the asari councilor and a salarian who stepped in. Each of the privateers shelved their laughter, and set their drinks down. Each of them standing up and facing the councilor, bowing their head respectfully. The bartender did the same before stepping out, exiting out the door that she came from.

"I see each of you is well adjusted to my lounge." She bowed her head back in a respectful manner, or as respectful as she could toward a trio of former convicts. "I will have to skip the debriefing and inform you that something horrible has happened when you were away at your mission, and judging by the data you forwarded us, it's directly related to the subject matter you were investigating on Golmes."

The trio shot one another suspicious glances.

"This is Admiral Juib Harxton, the new chief of salarian naval intelligence." Each of the freebooters shook hands with the plainclothes salarian admiral, who smiled and murmured a few greetings toward each of them. His other arm held a projector or computer of some sorts, which he made a beeline for the coffee table, placing the projector atop it and adjusting a few settings on his omni tool.

"I suppose you'll be so inclined to inform us of this ill deed, admiral?" Burke queried as he sat down, Brooklyn slightly irked by his lack of respect, even though it was not unusual.

"To put it bluntly, it's a horrible crisis." The asari councilor interrupted, answering for him. This only tickled the intrigue of the three privateers.

"A turian colony was assaulted by unknown assailants, and we lost complete contact with it. Possibly by a batarian faction from what we're hearing." Harxton finished the sentence.

There was no shortage of wide eyes and shock from the crew of the Panera. "Shit..." Burke huffed. "This… really could start a war."

"Who, wha- how? Where?" Brooklyn scratched the top of her head, a confused expression in her eyes.

"It occurred on the colony of Sargonis, located in the Gargon system of the Triple Eagle Cluster. It's the closest turian colony to the terminus systems, which would provide an explanation as to why it was chosen for an assault. Two distress signals were sent, and each time the Hierarchy armada tried to call them, no one bothered to answer." The admiral tapped into his omni tool. "This is the first transmission that was sent out from the colonial marine garrison."

The projector flashed static, revealing the holographic image of a turian, followed by a half calm, half frightened voice accompanied by the sounds and sights of battle. "Sargonis port to Heirarchy fleet, this is a priority one distress call. The colony is being assaulted, I say again, the colony is being assaulted. They are attacking civilians, and the local infantry has reported thirteen dead, and nine wounded… me included. They are well armed, and well equipped, COULD SOMEBODY GET A VISUAL ON ONE OF THOSE FUC-"

The image froze, and the admiral flicked his omni tool once more. "The second transmission does not have any video feed, and the fighting seems to have died down."

A blank holographic light shined through the projector, merely showing a bar which documented the length of the recording. The turian from before spoke, sounding genuinely exhausted, and locked in a delirious monotone. "Sargonis port, to Heirarchy fleet command… there is a hole in the command building, and I'm lying right near the edge… the fresh water lining has been hit… and has flooded nearly half of the city. All of the buildings are either… on fire… full of holes, or… demolished… the battalion commander was killed when the roof collapsed… I tried… to pull him free… but he suffocated under the weight… the flood is washing bodies into the plaza below… one of them was halted by… a lamppost… its back arched against it… they are all badly burned or dismembered… I am missing my right leg… severed just above the knee… it was on the edge of the hole in the building… and it just now… fell… I can see it… floating… in the water… down the moving current… it just stopped against that same… turian… I can't tell who it is… its missing most of its torso… and has a badly burned face… the enemy dropships are leaving… extracting their belongings and… the savages who massacred us… I can see the wind…" The sound of a sudden explosion jolted the three privateers. "…the chemical factory just burst… I can see the wind blowing smoke towards me… it's getting closer… and closer… I can't see anything now…"

The rest of the transmission was just the sound of howling wind and distant collapsing buildings, accompanied by pathetic whimpering coughs. Admiral Harxton fast forwarded the transmission, which judging by the time bar, was only a tenth of the way over before he paused it. "It's mostly silence and him coughing from here on. Listen very closely to this last bit I'm going to show you." The salarian said.

The coughing had grown wheezy and dry, and shouted something in between the coughs before utter silence apart from ambient noise took place. Burke's ears went back halfway on his head, the hairs on his neck twisting. It sounded faintly like "Blue Suns".

"Well… uh… that was not creepy or anything." Darius nervously laughed in his usual deep voice.

Each of them found themselves picking up their drinks, sipping them with rapid resolve. "Did he say Blue Suns?" Burke immediately threw the question out as he held the held the cocktail at his side.

"That's what we believe." Harxton nodded, the councilor stepping past him and staring out the window to the rest of the citadel, viewing the five arms in their entirety. "We have also managed to tap into the automated records, local surveillance managed to catch two clear images of the attackers."

The projected revealed a flat image, one Darius had to lean to the side to see. The first was a black and white image, most likely from a camera attached to the side of a building. Fleeing turians were seen, breaking away from a pursuing armored humanoid sporting a massive weapon. A cluster of corpses lay near him, a police vehicle clearly on fire.  
>The second image was clearly a more ascended shot, showing several burnt out buildings, an explosion in the distance, and around ten of the suits flying overhead, using some sort of aerial thruster pack.<p>

"We have also confirmed that the VIP shelter you raided on Golmes belonged to the turian hierarchy." The councilor had stated, still staring into the cusps of the astronomical horizon. "Some of those massive armored humanoids you see were the items that were sold."

The admiral placed his hands behind his back and cleared his throat. "They were part of a turian military project, titled 'War Drum'. The project was so secret, that the hierarchy did not even declassify it to the Council itself until after it was abandoned. The general populace still doesn't know."

The councilor continued. "Some of them were manufactured within the belly of the facility you raided, years and years ago after the hierarchy ditched the operation."

Burke could not believe what he was hearing. "Please tell me you're joking."

"In the name of God… why?" Brooklyn's eyes twitched. "Why would they abandon it?"

"One reason being that Golmes' parent nebula was purchased by a terminus faction, hence why a batarian terrorist cell eventually had seized control of the facility." The councilor explained, walking to one of the vases and withdrawing a single blue flower from it, inspecting it and running a finger along its petals. "The other was that War Drum's funding was completely cut, and they did not even have sufficient resources to withdrawal the armor and other equipment. They considered detonating the armor, and even orbitally bombarding the station. Though the way the facility was designed, that could not have been properly executed."

"That is a cluster fuck of astronomical proportions." Burke's hand was over his face. He then brought the cocktail glass to his lips, downing the rest of it. The others also began to consume their drinks at an escalated pace. "How many people were stationed at that colony, and how is the hierarchy reacting?"

"The other councilors and I have been pressuring and stalling the hierarchy to not declare war in any way possible. There were seven hundred and forty six colonists in the city, which is why the turians are furious. There are several life signs being read, implying survivors, but there is yet another complication."

The councilor nodded to the salarian admiral, who nodded back. "Yes, two turian frigates were sent to the system, and we have recently gotten reports of an unstable energy signature from the frigate sensors. One associated with an elevated optimal neutron discharge emitter, to roughly speak."

"Oh damn… a bomb?" Darius questioned.

"Aye. A neutron based explosive device that kills all living things, but leaves structures standing. One capable of eradicating everything within a 60 mile radius."

"Goddamn, it's practically a nuclear device." Brooklyn sighed. "And a suit of powered armor that can take out an entire city that quickly…"

The councilor placed the flower back in its spot and returned to the circle, sitting on one of the sofas. "This is a dangerous gamble to ask you to undertake, but we will double your usual hazard pay for this."

"Here we go…" Darius whispered under his breath, placing his empty glass on the counter and sitting back.

"We need each of you to travel there and diffuse the bomb so that the armada can touch down." The councilor spoke. "Any evidence you can find to prove it was the Blue Suns that were behind the attack would be highly beneficial, since they are not technically an official terminus faction, and war could not be declared on the Terminus systems."

Burke laughed in a hearty and sinister manner. "Yeah, we really are that expendable, aren't w-"

"Burke would you show some goddamned respect?" Brooklyn shouted under grit teeth. The mercenary before her frowned and nodded in embarrassment.

The councilor placed her hands in her lap and leaned forward. "I'll tell you what, if you get to the bottom of this crisis, consider each of your names cleared entirely. You won't be forced to work for us again, if you do not desire to."

All three of them were silent for an entire minute after that last statement, each for their own reasons. "You're… you're about ready for that?" Darius asked.

"This is the most desperate situation we have asked you to participate in… it would be savage of us to not make it worth your trouble." The councilor stood up.

Burke looked at the others, each of them nodding. Brooklyn stood up. "Very well. We, the crew of the Panera, accept the mission." She announced, her voice implying a robust deal of reluctance.


	7. Dystrophy

Chapter 6 - Dystrophy

Sailing through the high aether at faster than light travel, the crew of the Panera mingled about the cramped interior as the ship's controls were currently in the possession of the automatic pilot. Burke had disassembled his striker pistol and was oiling the firing mechanism with the standard cleaning kit. About three feet away, Darius and Brooklyn fumbled with the automated mortar turrets that were to be deployed with the mission. The turian was concerned with the hydraulics and movement in the one he was working on, while Brooklyn was wrapping up the finishing touches on the remote calibration.

The Panera was an aging converted 'Broadsword' class fighter corvette that originally belonged to the salarian fleet, designed for both assaulting capitol ships as well as planetary bombing and strafing. Extremely maneuverable and brandishing an arsenal of torpedoes, missiles, and a LAMAC (Light Automatic Mass Accelerator Cannon), it proved to be a capable instrument of warfare in the hands of the right pilot.

The waning novelty of the ship weighed in with obnoxious reminders, such the various flaws with the half pathetic drive core stuffed in the back. The fuselage occasionally had the tendency to creak during FTL drives, and the air conditioning was either too cold or too hot most of the time, inciting Brooklyn to break into an occasional sweat. These blemishes and pitfalls aside, the Panera had served its crew quite well, and swept its troupe out of several hairy situations.

The interior was sufficed to say, somewhat cramped. There was a table near the back where they ate their meals, a supply room full of perishables in the underside, the captain's quarters near the stern, and the three cryo bunks near the front. It was all shoddy and disorganized to say the least, and most of the lights had to be shut off to ration the constantly abstained power supply, leaving only colored glowing or a single light in the interior. For most individuals in the galaxy, this would invoke inflamed bouts of cabin fever or claustrophobia. The Panera's crew did not mind in the slightest, however.

"Ever wonder why we never cut and run and start working for the terminus factions again?" Burke broke the silence and ambient rattling of air units and clicking the trigger of the disassembled pistol and inspecting the bare firing mechanics. They were all huddled on the floor behind the cockpit, surrounded by weapons, equipment and accessories. Burke and Brooklyn both dressed in standard slacks and sleeveless shirts, the formers being a pale brown and Brooklyn's being red.

Brooklyn and Darius answered in immediate near-unison, not making eye contact.  
>"Because the terminus factions are vile and corrupt?"<br>"Because they'd send someone after us that's much meaner than us, like a Spectre?"

Burke merely nodded, picking up the discarded barrel of the pistol and rubbing the scrubber through it. "Still wonder if we'd be put in harm's way to a degree such as this."

Darius sunk his head toward his breast and howled with laughter. "That was a good one… wait… you were joking right?"

Burke stood up, his eyes clearly soaked in an aching melancholy, and sinking depression. He placed the weapon parts as well as the maintenance kit at his feet, stepping over the other weapon parts. "I'm gonna go take a break. I'll be back in a few minutes."

The remaining two ceased what they were doing and observed Burke disappeared into the head, grasping a duffel bag that lay on the table. The door closed behind him, and Darius' jaw sank, his head turning to Brooklyn.

"How long has he been on that stuff?" He whispered as audibly as possible.

Brooklyn did not answer, merely packing up the mortar turret after she completed the work on it.

Darius stood up, moving in front of her in an attempt to block her. "Last mission I went on with him he had the same weird look in his eyes. Do you ever do anything to stop it? He can't keep putting that stuff into his body!"

A crooked frown was evident on Brook's face as she hung her head low, placing a thumb and forefinger on each of her temples. "I'll talk to him about this later, both of us can… but if we make him stop now it's going to do more harm than good.

Inside the near chrome bathroom, Burke fumbled with his duffel bag. Unintentionally, he found himself withdrawing a plastic envelope, unpacking its single content. It fell into the dry sink with a harsh clank. It was his old photo projector, in the shape of a portrait. He withdrew it, placing on the flat surface and switching it on.

The first was the most recent image, the photo of the crew taken planetside as they huddled around a crashed probe, their firearms held out in exaggerated poses. He glanced at it with a hint of nostalgia as he spotted the old traits. This was back when both Burke and Brooklyn were still chain smokers, as was evident with the cheap cigarettes hanging out of their mouths. The picture still showed Darius' Onyx mark I armor, which was replaced with his current mantis armor. There were also minor details, such as his striker pistol being unpainted, Brook's hair being partially dyed blond, and Burke's beard still in the five o'clock shadow stage.

His finger rapped the buttons, switching the pictures back into his early childhood. His mother and father caught on camera, still alive and baring warming, and toothy smiles.

It was difficult to spear down, but Burke could feel an emotion he could not describe. He knew for sure it combined blissful melancholy and a sense of mellow incompleteness. He was waiting to see if he was going to burst into tears, but that moment never arrived.

He withdrew the plastic bag full of asari made red sand, pouring some of its contents into a medical hypo syringe, mixing its liquid supplement and closing it. He then sat on the closed toilet seat, placing a spike behind his elbow, the stimulating narcotics sinking into his veins and taking Burke into a brief itinerary of specious excitement.


	8. Knee Deep in the Dead

Chapter 7 - Knee Deep in the Dead

The Panera fell out of FTL transit exactly twenty-six minutes later. Beforehand, Darius hauled the mortar turrets below to the back ramp, where the deployment catapults would do the remainder of the work to drop them on the battlefield. Burke had emerged from the bathroom earlier, Brooklyn immediately spotting his dilated pupils and more rapid motor functions she passed him by on their way to the pilot's seat.

The duo of turian frigates basked in space just out of reach of Sargonis' atmosphere, one of them clearly activating its thrusters in order to whip around and claim a head start in case the Panera happened to be a bogey.

"_Unidentified fighter, this is Commander Waldorn of the Turian Armada, please confirm your identity or you will be fired upon."_

Brooklyn immediately began punching the digits of the verification codes into the communications console, while Darius and Burke lingered in the two passenger's seats, both assembling their weapons. "Yep, that's my armada." Darius piped. "If they aren't thinking with their oversized and overpowered mass accelerator cannons, they're acting directly on their behalf."

The clearance codes were uploaded, and Brooklyn had the chance to marvel at the dark bluish glow of the night cycle half of Sargonis, the sun directly on the horizon and pouring dawn near their destination.

"_Clearance codes verified, Panera. Good luck, and for the love of whatever God that you believe in, be careful down there."_

"Oh how nice that he's concerned about us." Burke mocked in a sing-song voice, cocking his Striker pistol, and as Brooklyn began their descent into the planet's cold atmosphere.

"Doubt it. I'd guess he just doesn't want the surviving colonists to get evaporated by an exploding neutron bomb." Brooklyn replied.

"_You know your channel is still open, Panera, and I can hear you?"_

"Yes, we know." Brooklyn tongue and cheekily reply just before she closed the line. The sound of the turian commander's groan was audible just for a split second before the frequency was shut.

"Pretty smooth, Brook. That was like sticking your hand in the fireplace and cooling it off in boiling water." Burke leaned over and nudged her, where she responded immediately with a repugnant hand gesture.

The sky was absolutely clear when the Panera touched down, a refreshing departure from the terrorizing weather they had a habit of venturing into. No close observation was needed to see that there were quite a few establishments still engulfed in flames, or spewing smoke. There were only two buildings in the city that could be classified as skyscrapers, both of them riddled with holes, their windowed frames shattered. Much of the damage, particularly the nearest skyscraper, looked like it could have only been caused by a large ship or frigate, which did not help assuage the constant suspicion.

Brooklyn had dropped her two associates at the southeastern edge of town, where the unfriendly energy signature was the strongest, and the bomb was possibly located. They filed out and into the street in between two large apartment complexes before the Panera lifted off further up, and ascended further atop. The two mercenaries checked their perimeters and made sure they weren't in the dead center of someone's crosshairs. The street had the stench of the dead that littered it, most of them scorched or dismembered. The wind howled and the structures creaked and burned, creating an unsettling atmosphere. Each of their weapons was fitted with a motion detector that showed in small holographic interfaces.

Their ear-pieces crackled. "_You two oughta know, bomb is inside a large conveyor vessel that touched down to the northwest. There's also this warehouse or factory of some sort about a third of a mile north of you that's displaying a ton of life signs. Listen, I'm seeing some folks moving up the street toward it, as well as a single combat vehicle."_

"Turians?" Burke responded, holding his pistol outward, taking the lead as they ran along the street in the gutter, closely huddling toward abandoned skycars and ground vehicles for cover.

"_I don't know, they're awfully far awa- oh, SHIT-"_

Both looked up, seeing the Panera in the near distance as it swerved in boomerang movements, a missile following on her tail. Countermeasure flares were shot out of the stern, leading the missile toward the ground, where it detonated with a rumbling boom kilometers away to the west.

"Brook! You alright?" Burke shouted with one hand on his earpiece.

"_Screw this, I'm not getting anywhere near there until you rub those bastards out."_ Brooklyn yanked the Panera around halfway between her cohorts and the opposing party, the back ramp dropping out and a turret plummeting on top of one of the apartment buildings, where the automated mechanics deployed itself. The Panera then whisked off and burst toward the south, its engines shrieking overhead.

"Roger that, Panera. We'll let you know when the way is clear." Darius tapped his earpiece, leading the way. "Who could they be?"

"Pray that it's not batarian terrorists, or our bonus is probably forfeit." Burke had replied, checking the disc grenades along his belt. "We can probably cut through that apartment over there."

"Probably the safest stance, considering the climate." Darius added, crossing the street warily.

The interior of the apartment building was near sightless and rumbling with the wind entering through its occasional gaping hole. Due to the lack of power, the interior hallway they were in held a surfeit of darkness, requiring the aid of torches from their omni-tools. The lodging was somewhat bargain, mostly bland metal interior with carpeted floors and such. Archetypically, turians were never known to have a keen sense of style.

"Why, oh why did you bring your trench coat and not your armor?" Darius pondered in statement, checking open apartment doors and every corner possible.

"To be honest I didn't think we'd be running into goons with rocket launchers and armored vehicles." Burke replied. His Tornado shotgun was drawn, rather than his striker pistol, holding the small but bulky weapon with one hand as his left sported the omni tool flashlight. "But at least I brought my shield unit."

"And it's not like you to prepare for the worst? Don't you remember Akeron V?" Darius chuckled, covering his the back with his hybrid rifle.

"Now that was a mission for the ages." Burke recollected with a smirk. "More like a fiasco for the ages, am I right?"

Darius' motion tracker flashed a single reading, the turian's right hand releasing itself from the grip as he held his hand to his side, just away from his head, signaling a halt.

A flashlight and footsteps came out of one of the open apartment buildings, a tall and intimidating figure emerging with a backpack over his shoulders. It was a turian, and a very tall and broad shouldered one too.

"Hold it." Burke whispered loudly, shining the flashlight on him and slowly walking up to the massive turian and sticking the shotgun to his ear. The turian sighed, holding his arms up as the human mercenary confiscated the pistol that was at his belt.

"Take your backpack off." Burke demanded again. "Slowly."

"It's full of water bottles." The turian's voice was more higher in pitch than either of them expected.

"I said remove it." Burke demanded once again.

Gingerly, the turian dropped the backpack off his shoulders, Burke catching it with one hand and openening it, shining the flashlight into its interior. It was indeed, chock full of bottled water and a few snacks.

"Ah, shit." Darius walked closer to his fellow turian, shining his light on his striped purple suit, seeing several digits upon his back. "This asshole's an escaped convict, Burke."

Burke's mustache inched together close as his face contorted into a suspicious scowl. He dropped the backpack on the ground and reached for his shotgun yet again. "You with those hooligans that are marching up north?"

"You mean those uptight suckers in piss yellow armor?" The turian asked, his hands still up. "No."

"Yellow armor?" Burke repeated.

"Eclipse?" Darius spoke aloud.

"Dunno, they're mostly asari and humans. Think I saw a few salarians with them, too." The convict explained.

Burke turned away from the convict toward Darius. "What the fuck are the Eclipse mercs doing here Darius?"

"What's your name, prisoner?" Darius questioned again. "Do you know what happened here? What were your charges?"

It occurred to Darius that he hadn't been watching the prisoner's hands, as they somehow got a hold of the pistol that was confiscated from him. With great strength, Burke was pistol whipped in the gut and pushed into the middle of the hallway, pulling him backward just a little and using him as a human shield.

"My name's Avin Pardo. I've been accused of many things, and I suppose you can say pickpocketing is one of them." The turian laughed heartily, reaching over and picking up his backpack. "I think it's time I was on my way, so if you gentlemen would excuse me."

A few seconds later, Pardo disappeared into the darkness, Darius running over to his comrade and watching his back.

"That son of a-" Burke checked his belt. Everything beside the confiscated pistol was still on his belt, nothing else stolen.

"Okay, that was bad vigilance for both of us on our part. I'm as guilty as you were on that. The guy's obviously long gone." Darius called out from beyond the hallway, confirming that Avin was no longer in the building.

"Did you see the size of that crazy bastard, he must have been like, seven and a half feet tall?" Burke followed him, his tornado shotgun once again drawn.

"Yeah, he was almost as big as a krogan. And believe me when I say this, but I've seen a lot of tall turians… but that guy…"

The light poured in ahead, and they came upon the back of the apartment building, most of it shot out or destroyed. Clearly, the could see that directly ahead, no more than a few meters away, was the column of soldiers from before, indeed Eclipse Mercenaries.

They both quickly snuck past their sight, crouching under the blown out windows of the apartment lobby. The rumbling of a slow armored vehicle was evident as Burke checked his omni tool, tapping into the frequency of the mortar turret that was set on top of the building beside the one they were in.

"Yeah, the firing path is clear. No obstructions." Burke whispered aloud.

"Movement counts around ten, no eleven of them." Darius turned his head toward Burke. "What do you think… Eclipse mercs aren't the most reasonable of people, and for all we know they actually could be behind this."

Burke nodded as he sat under the windowsill. The Eclipse mercs were close enough to them to where they could clearly hear them talking about their birthdays. "Plus they'll still be around if we don't ice them now." He grasped one of his grenades, the high explosive fitted one and nudged his squad mate. "Go over a few windows, I'll take out the vehicle and unleash mortary hell on 'em, you gun the rest of them down."

Darius' mandibles twitched in anticipation. "Give 'em hell, Burkey boy."

"The hell did I tell you about calling me that?" Burke groaned, Darius already gone and moving gingerly to the far side of the lobby.

Burke peeked over the sill, using his omni tool motion tracker to mark their movements. He tossed the disc grenade into the middle of the street near where the vehicle was rolling up, then ducked back. If any infantry saw this, they were not reacting momentarily. He then began tapping into his omni tool.

In a few seconds, the mine under the armored vehicle detonated, a mortar round springing from the sky and impacting into the column of Eclipse infantry. Darius and Burke popped up from cover, and prepared to unleash hell.


	9. Fish in a Barrel

Chapter 8 - Tangos

Another mortar had detonated on the far side of the street, the concussion of the detonating munitions sweeping an asari sentinel off her feet and tossing her through a shop window. Another one of her Eclipse brethren, a human rifleman had his foot torn asunder by shrapnel, being knocked on his back by the force of the explosion, writhing and bleeding on the ground.

Both Burke and Darius' weapons blasted incessant chimes, signaling that their weapons had overheated. They both adopted cover, Burke switching windows as the fire was drawn to the one he had just shot out of. In less than 30 seconds, two Eclipse troopers lie or dying, and four wounded. One of which was a human engineer who rolled around clutching her bloodied armor carapace that Burke's pistol had penetrated with a shot to the ribs. The first kill had been an Eclipse trooper carrying a large missile launcher that looked too big for him to carry, and he was unfortunate enough to be a mere few feet away from Darius' window when the ambush had begun.

The combat vehicle's front sank into a dent in the road. Two the axels had been ruptured, and one of the front wheels had popped off entirely. The engine's radiator had been damaged at the core, and the frontal rough terrain jets on the underside had their fuel lines fractured, making it practically impossible for it to move in any way without repair. The Eclipse infantry had been separated into two squads as Darius continued to pin them down with automatic fire after his rifle had cooled. A squad of four, including two of the wounded huddled behind a large fallen chunk of rubble, cramped together away from the line of fire like armored sardines. The other group, this one of three, called out from the safety behind the disabled armored vehicle, trying to figure out a way to link up with the wounded.

One mercenary had stuck his head out too far, and caught one of Darius' shots that penetrated his visor and sunk into his brain, falling on his knees, quivering, and then flat on his face. The rest of the mercenaries were blind firing their weapons, putting each side in a bitter stalemate at the moment.

Craddock placed a finger on his earpiece as he heard and felt a round tear off a chunk of the windowsill just above his head. "Brook, this is Burke. We took out the anti air support, but we kinda need some extra firepower down here!"

"_Be there in a jiffy. Hold steady."_ The last few mortars fell into the street with defeaning explosions. The turrets fire was not accurate enough to do any decent damage against the entrenched Eclipse troopers. Burke checked his motion tracker briefly, seeing that two more figures were on the move through the side window, which was covered and barricaded by a large data shelf. It was most likely an auxiliary recon team, likely having the intention of sneaking from the side and getting the drop on them.

Burke holstered his pistol and grasped the Tornado shotgun. The model he used did not have a modern built in heat sink, requiring disposable models to be used, thermal clips as they were called. Four were loaded inside the weapon, allowing two shots each to be fired in a semi automatic fashion, the pump on the underside changing the clip. This increased the firepower of any weapon, but reduced its reliability and tactical longevity in a combat situation, unless the wielder had any off hand thermal clips to spare.

Burke's free hand yanked the shelf to the floor, exposing the exterior, and two Eclipse troopers. A human with an assault rifle turned his head, surprised, not long before a close-ranged shotgun blast from Burke bore a hole into his chestplate. The other teammate, this one a salarian engineer, flinched as his bloodied comrade fell onto the ground. He had been caught midway in deploying a combat drone when a second blast from Craddock's tornado shotgun flipped him over on the side, rounds penetrating his skull and chest.

The vehicle's turret sprung to life, quickly turning to face the apartment lobby. Darius muttered a few obscenities as he dived to the side and crawled away. Burke had only just ducked in time when several heavy machinegun rounds began chiseling the inside and outside of the building in a high spray volume. Burke fell back, rolled against the wall, and cocked his shotgun, releasing a steaming thermal heat sink which span in mid air and was shattered by a stray round from the vehicle's gun.

Both of the privateers began ducking under fire, trying to crawl away as bits of rubble and twisted metal burst off the sides, bouncing off Darius' armor or in Burke's case, sticking to his wool trenchcoat. The morale of the Eclipse troopers had just peaked like a grand day at a stock exchange, popping from cover and laying down as much fire as possible on the building side.

The Panera had swung over the street top, just above the buildings and antennas of the city, and unleashed a volley of heavy mass accelerator rounds, semi automatic, onto the column of Eclipse troopers below. The vehicle's turret burst in a fiery explosion, causing the already wavering yellow armored guns to shift their fire into the air. One trooper suffered a direct hit and shattered like a burnt pot with a single round.

"Fall back! Let's get the hell out of here!" The asari commander yelled, grasping her rifle and retreating along with the others, the wounded already had been treated with medigel. The two privateers had popped their heads out of cover, picking off as many fleeing mercs as they could before they disappeared.

Brooklyn sat in the cockpit and released the finger from the trigger on the control stick, her free hand flipping her targeting monocle up. "Sorry about the delay guys, had a bit of trouble finding the street name. You all alive down there?"

"No, Darius and I killed each other."

"Har dee har, har."

Brooklyn smiled warmly, not admitting that she happened to be a little worried about them. "Well listen, I probably think you two already know that these characters are Eclipse. But they have their own transport conveyor parked to the northwest, and that's where the bomb is."

"So we'd better get over there." Darius replied.

"Not so fast, linking up with the colonists is our first priority. I saw two of them on the roof of the factory I told you about, waving towels. I think they were colonial marines." She tapped the main control screen a few times, swinging the corvette around and facing the opposite direction of the street.

Darius grumbled. "Fine. But tell them I'm not giving them my rations, even if they need it."

On the ground, the two privateers filed out of the apartment complex and into the street. "You always were pretty uptight about your food supply, Dare." Burke smiled, stepping over a corpse that leaned against the burnt out vehicle.

"I'll meet you over there. Want me to pick you up and take you there?" Brooklyn queried, lowering the ship in the slightest.

Burke heard the vehicle's hatch open beside him. "Thanks, that'd be great." He replied, grabbing his pistol and swinging it around. The sights were lined at a half delirious human mercenary, who emerged with a bloody nose and mouth, his eyes half closed, and his hands over his head when he saw the barrel in his face.

Darius nodded his head toward Burke, who placed a hand on his earpiece. "Well, well, Miss Seltzer. I think we may have an additional passenger today."


	10. Welcome Wagon

[b][u]Chapter 9 – Welcome Wagon[/u][/b]

The Panera descended onto the top of the structure, where two turians with military grade weapons and armor stood and stared through the exposed cockpit window. The wind blustered as the artificial gravity engines carried the heavy fighter as it began to nestle on the roof of the facility.

The landing gear retracted, the stands flattening on the roof, and Burke and Darius filing out with the Eclipse prisoner, the former nudging his neck with a pistol.

"Stay here with him Darius." He spoke into the ear of his turian squadmate in order to be audible over the whining engines of the Panera. Burke holstered his pistol and waved at the two turian marines that stood by the union boss' office, which was practically built on top of the roof.

"We appreciate the assistance, but who the hell are you folks?" One turian with a sniper rifle yelled over the engines of the Panera, which were just now starting to relax.

The human tapped into his omni tool and showed a flat holographic display of his credentials. "Burke Craddock, I'm a mercenary working for the citadel council! Same goes with my associates Darius Macerdin and Brooklyn Seltzer!" Burke lifted one hand over to the Panera as its captain began shutting down its engines.

The turian with the sniper rifle nodded. "Sergeant Idenkin, 798th colonial marine battalion! There's only six of us left, and we've been holding out and protecting the surviving colonists inside the factory!"

"We wanted to let you know, there's a massive neutron bomb that's been deployed by the Eclipse mercs and we don't know if they'll set if off or not." Burke stated, beckoning the other two. "The fleet is afraid to touch down until we get a deal sorted out."

"Makes sense." Idenkin nodded to the turian with the assault rifle and they all filed down toward the staircase. "Come on down, we'll show you around."

"Listen, sergeant, can you confirm who the attackers were on this colony? Any evidence? Did your battalion manage to dispatch one of the attackers?" Burke stacked the queries like a pile of papers.

"Sorry, I really don't know. All we saw were the big blue suits of armor that came down and tore ass around the city. They might be Blue Suns, but I doubt they would attack a colony in Citadel space." Idenkin answered after a brief pause, not making eye contact. "Look, we really need that mercenary conveyor captured and taken out. Eclipse sent a scouting party and we took out two of them, and they could be coming around for another attack on this factory." They passed by a turian sitting on an empty crate, who lazily stood up and made an unenthused salute.

"My associates and I can certainly alleviate that problem on our own." Burke replied, looking around the messy interior of the factory. The interior of the structure smelled of burnt plastic and heavy rust, and there was a minimal amount of damage done to it.

As a whole the factory was separated into three floors, each floor being exactly the same as the other in terms of industrial operation. Each interior factory room was wholly wrapped around by a stretch of hallway and staircases. It was a factory for producing and melding plastic or similar substances used for building cheap products, and one could realize why the attackers did not want to use up precious ammunition on the structure.

When they were on the second floor, one of the turians, this one carrying a shotgun, opened a door to the floor's operation area. The equipment was inoperable, and the chamber itself was filled with cots, where turian civilians lay resting upon them, most fast asleep, but some mumbling to themselves in partial slumber. A single guard watched over them, an assault rifle in his hands.

"These are the civilians we managed to save. All of them are extremely tired, some even lightly injured, though the medic is helping them out." Idenkin woefully explained, immediately closing the door when the medic looked at them suspiciously.

"How's the food supply here? Anything we can do to help?" Brooklyn asked, coming down with Darius and the bound Eclipse prisoner.

Idenkin pat his stomach after the remark. "We're good on food, maybe a little short on water but it's nothing we can't manage."

"Speaking of water…" Darius mentioned, holding a gangly armored turian finger upward. "We came across an escaped convict who was hauling water and other supplies out of an abandoned hostel."

"He was armed too, carried a pistol." Burke interrupted. "Not to mention he was the biggest damned turian I've ever seen in my life."

"That, too. Went by the name of Avil Pardo, or Abol Pardi or something like that…" Darius scratched his painted face in deep pondering.

"Um… gee." Idenkin rubbed the back of his neck. "That's… awfully unsettling. But not entirely unexpected."

"Better keep a lookout for that bastard. I wasn't going to admit, but I might as well tell you, we tried to subdue him but-" Darius shook his head and chuckled.

Burke smiled. "Yeah but he kind of muscled his way out of our grip."

"By muscled you mean totally snuck his oversized meathook of a hand onto your belt and stole your pistol." Darius fired back with a vocally hazed laugh, Burke responding.

The Idenkin's jaw retracted a bit, his head held high; a turian smile. "Hahaha. Man, I shouldn't laugh at this, it's kind of serious, but, not as serious as those troopers out there."

"Aye. We'll get to work on them right away, but we need to interrogate our pal here, first. What did you say your name was?" Burke nudged the cuffed Eclipse capturee, who twitched his bloody nose at the response. Idenkin nodded, pat Darius on the shoulder as he walked by and dissapeared behind a corner.

The trooper's eyes darted about, hanging low and focusing on the ground and the feet. "Lieutenant Chet Anders, 22nd Starborne Brigade, under Commander T'Wani. I'm her executive officer. My identification chit is on my left hip in the pocket."

"You sure that's not your self destruct button or a nerve gas release chamber?" Brooklyn questioned in a snarky tongue in cheek manner. "You Eclipse nancies are a tricky bunch."

"Cut the shit, Brook." Darius cut in. "Also, thanks for volunteering. Stand back Burke... for obvious reasons."

Darius and Burke backed up and snickered, Brooklyn looking flustered and Anders looking somewhat confused by such jocular attitudes from these privateers. Reluctantly, Brooklyn fished the credentials out of the pocket, Craddock and Seltzer looking over them and nodding. "Yeah, it all checks out. We've got ourselves an Eclipse officer with us today."

"Yes you do... now what is it you want from me?" Lt. Anders spat a pinkened projectile of saliva onto the ground.

"What exactly are you goons doing here anyway?" Brooklyn turned at sat on a nearby flat top radiator, withdrawing an Atlantis Light cigarette from a pack on her arm and placing it into her mouth, flipping her omni tool on and igniting the tip.

"You sightseeing? Or hey! Perhaps dipping into journalism?" Darius taunted.

"Lieutenant Chet Anders, 2019-4557-J37Y." The Eclipse mercenary dodged the question effectively.

"Wrong answer, Chet." Darius nabbed the man's emergency rations from a cylinder pack on the lower part of his armored back, handing the cheese and crackers toward Brooklyn, and a can of fish to Burke.

Craddock peeled back the can's lid discarding it and dipping a gloved finger in it, returning it to his mouth. "What's Eclipse doing here Mr. Anders? Our time here's kind of limited, due to there being a rather powerful bomb in the hands of your fellow Klipsies, so if you can be a dapper gent and help out, that would be more than just great."

"Lieutenant Chet Anders, Two-Oh-One- ahhh... fuck me." The trooper took a deep breath and snorted. "T'Wani knows more than I do about this mission. I just the drive vehicles and relay orders to the Brigade."

"Good boy." Brooklyn removed the cigarette from her mouth and blew a screen of smoke out the corner of her mouth, which the wind blew in Darius' direction. "What DO you know about the mission?"

"Command thinks whoever attacked this was using stolen Eclipse weapons. That's really all I was briefed on."

"Well, Chet." Burke pat his Eclipse acquaintance upon the shoulder. "Maybe we can cut you a deal..."

The Eclipse conveyor transport ship was parked practically in between the shopping and suburban centers of the city, in the middle of a public sporting field. Buildings on the perimeter were quite shot up, and if one took a few hundred paces into the suburban field, they would come across a plethora of half incinerated turian corpses strewn about.

At the port flank of the landed ship, there was a mass of rubble, derived a small real estate office building, which had of course suffered a terrible destructive blow. Two eclipse troopers, salarians stood atop it, picking various junk out of it and placing it in a pile. Credit chits were found, but they were either badly damaged, or held little monetary value within them. Barricades were set up near the portside entrance,

Within the command bridge of the ISV Niljhen, Ulsa T'Wani hunched over the operations console. The metal screens had been drawn over the viewports to prevent a sniper attack. The asari commander flicked the holographic interface, the room being illuminated with the glow of a star map which outlined the planet and two red triangles which floated just to the side.

She took yet another sip of a sparkling water out of a cup and set it down on the workcenter. "Mr. Kobin, what are the chances of successfully running that turian blockade?" She asked without making eye contact.

The human Eclipse helmsman sank his head low and shook it. "Well, that would require an immediate emergency FTL jump as soon as we clear the atmosphere. I would have to get the angle right, and then even if we did escape, we'd risk reaching a point where we'd lose our fuel, or running into nearly anything unsavory, like another Council race patrol."

An asari sergeant stood on the opposite side of the operations console. "Commander, I regret to say this, but I think our only options here are to stay here and starve, deactivate the bomb and surrender ourselves, or... commit suicide."

"Makes me wish we actually had all the components for the damned thing." T'Wani turned and faced the hallway which led through the neck of the ship and forked toward the armory and officer's quarters.

"I should apologize to every uniformed Eclipse mercenary under my command. Officers, grunts, technicians, and especially those who died in that street downtown." T'Wani sighed. "I've sent us all into a deathtrap, a mission that was impossible to accomplish, and for that, everyone has suffered on my accou-"

[i]"Commander, we have four contacts closing in on foot from the factory district. One of them looks like one of ours, over."[/i] the forward watch officer spoke through the open channel.

"Everyone hold their fire until I say otherwise! Keep on the lookout for other tangos." She slammed her palm down on the table, everyone in the room doubling to the hall.

The nine remaining able men and women under T'Wani's command (two were in the infirmary due to the previous fight) doubled out the door and entrenched themselves in the available cover. The commander herself stood in full view, flanked by an engineer with a rifle. Her tech armor was activated, yellow transparent segmented force fields over her armor and head, and she carried a cherry red Raptor assault rifle at her side.

Lieutenant Anders raised his head, somewhat relieved that he could get to see his comrades again, even though Burke's pistol was pointed at the back of his neck as he marched him forth, Darius and Brooklyn merely a few steps behind.

"Sorry about the gun to the head, Chet." Brooklyn spoke. "We just wanted to make it look like we mean business."

"Yeah if it's any help, I have this on safety." Burke chuckled.

Anders was silent for a moment. "Can I ask you guys a question?"

"Go ahead Chet." Burke replied as he subconciously counted each of the entrenched Eclipse mercs.

"You guys are legitimized pirates and you haven't beaten me or tortured me for the information once you nabbed me. Why are you being so nice to me?"

"Well, we did take your emergency rations away and eat them in front of you." Darius added, checking the sights on his hybrid rifle. "That's kind of a dick thing to do."

"Yeah but that's a drop in the bucket compared to what Eclipse does to its prisoners the first five minutes after they're captured." Anders replied sheepishly.

"Lieutenant Anders..." Brooklyn began, a hand on her holstered sidearm. "We may be privateers without any rules, but we still know what the right thing to do is."

Anders smiled warmly, but ducked his head so no one could see. "God, you guys are straight out of an adventure novel kids would read in middle school."

"Wish we could say that were true on some variables." Burke smiled and waved toward the asari commander who frowned back.

They stopped a few paces away from the line, Burke stepping out from behind the captured junior officer. "Parley, ma'am?" Brooklyn spoke up.

The commander glared for a couple of seconds before speaking. "Are you three the lot that killed half of my men?"

Brooklyn relaxed her friendly smile and nodded. "Yes commander, I'm afraid we were."

"And now you want to negotiate..."

"You ever consider that it might be preferable to another bloodbath?" Darius yelled.

"Darius!" Brooklyn nudged her associate, who immediately shrugged. "Let me do the talking."

"Mr. Anders here is a decent fellow!" Burke completely ignored Brook's rule, even though she had just now repeated it. "The galaxy would be a lesser place if hostile action were to be taken here. And I'm not going to be the man who kills him." Chet rolled his eyes at the comment.

"And you showed him how much you liked him by battering him." Was the asari's snide observation.

"Ulsa, most of this blood is Lee's after their ship took a shot at us." Anders corrected. "I got this bloody nose when they hit the Cutlass the first time." He was referring to the time Burke threw a grenade under his vehicle. Initially, the lieutenant came across as a meek and timid man, but it seems that he knew the commander very well and was used to dealing with her.

"So what are you?" T'Wani paced around the line, not making eye contact. "Mercenaries? Looters? Or, is that turian with you a Spectre?"

"No commander." Brooklyn smiled once again. "We're privateers commissioned by the Council. We would like to turn in the lieutenant here as long as you lay down your weapons and deactivate your neutron bomb."

T'Wani laughed. "I should probably just detonate it right now, take all of us with it."

"Even though it's missing most of the components?" Brooklyn shot back.

"Nice. Did Chet tell you that?"

"Yeah. He said that the bomb is missing the detonator, the injector line, one of the charge primers, and both the retaining bands." Darius repeated, the Asari immediately frowning.

"No use lying to us now. We saw that look of yours." Brooklyn grinned, and placed her hands upon her hips.

The commander now had both hands on her rifle. "You ambush us like an asari maiden in a back alley, kill half my men, and now you make demands. Such typical pirate behavior."

"You'll lose the other half if you don't turn yourselves in." Burke spoke aloud, once again failing to toe the line with the plan. "And it's not going to be us this time. It's likely going to be from the turians blockading this planet, or starvation. Your choice."

"After all, since you likely came from the terminus systems, you'll likely be deported after spending a few mere months in incarceration awaiting trial... that is if you didn't kill any of the populace."

"I lost two scouts when they came across that factory we were heading to." T'Wani hung her head low and faced the other direction. "They were killed by the turians there, and as far as we know, we didn't take out any of them."

They suddenly remembered Sergeant Idenkin and his ramshackle band of colonial marines. "You have a much better chance if you follow through with this. Trust us. We can radio the Heirarchy Armada and tell them that you'll come quietly, and you and those under your command will recieve full quarter and proper treatment."

Half a minute of silence passed, and most of the Eclipse troopers were now looking at their commanding officer, those without closed helmets showing unsure and weary expressions. "Stand down, all of you." Ulsa T'Wani stepped out of the entrenched line and walked toward the mercs and her second in command. She clicked the compaction switch on her rifle, and it retracted and shrank in size as it folded automatically. Afterwards she laid it on the ground and did the same with her pistol.

The reluctance in her eyes and stifling vocal tone presented how completely shamed she felt. "The 22nd Starborne Brigade of the Eclipse Mercenary company... would... like to offer our unconditional... surrender."

After a few minutes, all the other Eclipse mercenaries laid their weapons, thermal clips, and other combat equipment in a pile where T'Wani laid her weapons, and all walked and sat in a cluster near the sporting field's snack bar, weaponless. Brooklyn scavanged an M100 Grenade Launcher, modified with a retractable stock. After the pile was cleared, she took aim and fired two rounds into the pile to destroy or damage the weapons, the pile bursting from the two explosive shells detonating on impact, the weapons scattering in pieces, or as a damaged whole.

Burke stopped Commander T'Wani before she joined her battered underlings. "Anders said that you all were here to recover some tech that you believed was stolen from you. Why head to the factory?"

"Our scouts confirmed that one of those armored suits was in the possession of those turians, possibly after they shot it up." The commander replied, placing her hands behind her back and standing in a military posture.

"The sergeant leading the surviving marines said otherwise."

"Well, then he was lying to you. Private T'Marik sent me video feed to prove it." She punched up digits in her omni tool, Burke placing a firm grip on his pistol if she were to try and incinerate him or bring up a combat drone.

A flat holographic screen was summoned above her omni tool, the footage colorless, but quite clear, and even with sound. The helmet attached camera focused on the back of a salarian scout, as well as the factory that they just visited and landed the Panera on. The salarian, most likely the squad leader signaled the asari camerawoman, who sank lower to the ground and moved ahead toward the side. In full view were a few turians hauling a battered exosuit, matching the exact look of the one seen in the colony security footage. One of them turned their head, and the rest did as well. Gunfire was seen and heard, and T'Marik exchanged the fire and took cover behind a battered guard shack. She turned her head, the salarian ordering the fallback as he sped away, a human scout firing as she backed up. The salarian was cut down with a shot to the head, but the human managed to flee. The private sat in her cover for a while before she slowely peeked out and aimed her assault rifle toward a turian marine who was seen just then crouching from view. A few other gunshots were heard, and the private immediately turned her head and saw Sergeant Idenkin in a closer view, as he had flanked her and held down the trigger. T'Marik screamed loudly as the shots penetrated her armor, and a final one hitting her helmet and destroying the attached video feed, ending it.

T'Wani turned the omni tool off and placed her hands on her hips. Burke stared, dumbfounded, Brooklyn at his side as her jaw gaped open. "The son of a bitch lied to us." They both hissed in unison.

Darius walked toward his associates. "Just sent word to the fleet. They'll touch down momentarily."

"Good work Dare. Get your things together and leave the mercs here." Burke responded, not making eye contact. "We have to pay our pals in the 798th another visit."


	11. Idenkin's Silver Hammer

Chapter 10 – Idenkin's Silver Hammer

By the time it was over, the howling wind had began to cease and was replaced with soft breezes. Nothing was heard but the non-rhythmic clunking of Burke's trail boots, the middleweight clacking of Brooklyn's GI boots, and the pitter-patter of Darius' turian feet. The streets leading up to the plastics factory were exactly the same as they left it, the occasional turian corpse, burnt out cars and sky vehicles, and some flooding from the destruction of the water plant.

The factory was coming into view as they walked to it. "So what incentive does the good sergeant have by withholding evidence?" Burke spoke aloud, brushing his black wool trench coat with his gloved hands.

"There was a sergeant there?" Darius asked, though not loud enough for the other two to hear them.

"I guess the Hierarchy really wants that technology for themselves." Brooklyn stated her opinion, carrying the compacted Eclipse grenade launcher she confiscated over her shoulder.

"But wait, who was the sergeant you were talking about again? I guess I didn't meet him." Darius spoke up again.

Burke looked at the factory lot's guard shack, suddenly remembering the video footage of the Eclipse scouts, and a single hair poking upward as he saw what he believed to be a spot of asari blood where the pointwoman was slain. "Sergeant Idenkin, you met him remember? The turian who gave us the brief tour?"

Darius froze, perplexed. "I thought that guy was a junior lieutenant."

"The fuck are you talking about Darius?" Burke asked.

"He had a single silver oval on his collar. Bam. Junior lieutenant. Don't you know jack about the turian marine chain of command?" Darius barked, waxing irritated.

"He told me he was a sergeant." Burke repeated.

Darius' mandibles clicked. "Well either he lost his own armor, or what he said is another big fat one we can add to his list of li-"

There was a snap of a rifle, a wispy trail of distorted air flew from the top of the factory, landing in Darius' neck armor where he reeled backward and landed on his side.

"DARIUS!" Brooklyn screamed as she doubled back and took cover behind the guard shack, and unfolded her expropriated grenade launcher. Soon afterward, the windows on the face side of the factory became a shower-head of sorts for pistol and assault rifle fire, the ground around the privateers getting shot and kicked up. Burke dived toward an abandoned turian slip bike and hid his form behind it, sparks and tiny bits of metal popping off of it.

For a few seconds the unflappable suppression fire continued, Darius crawling behind a parking post and using that and a foot of elevated sidewalk as measly cover.

"CUT IT OUT!" A somewhat familiar voice on a loudspeaker cried, and the barrage halted. "How are you guys doing, it's been a while... like... an hour? Maybe more? Maybe less... don't really have a concept of time. You know, it's good you didn't come by here when I was around, because you'd realize that there wasn't a military uniform I could steal that fit me, me being a big fella and all."

"It's that convict! Avil Pardo." Darius growled, patting the rupture on his armor.

"Darius, are you hit bad?" Burke whispered.

"Negative. Didn't go all the way through."

"Your flesh, or your armor?" Brooklyn asked, briefly popping her head out of cover to get a glimpse of the area.

"My ass." Darius' snarky non-sequester reply suggested the latter.

"WE KNEW it was probably too much to ask for you all to clear out that merc ship and let us take it." Avil continued over the loudspeaker. "We certainly weren't going to take your piece of shit fighter corvette, doesn't matter how much firepower it's got on it, I've seen prettier things that came from a varren's anus."

"Thanks for the vivid imagery!" Burke yelled as loud as he could without screaming.

"You could give Idenkin some 'imagery' by popping out of your cover, so he can get a pop at yah. He's up in the union boss' loft on the roof. He was a former military policeman after all, so he knows his marksmanship." Pardo's chuckling sounded quite menacing over the speaker. "He killed an elcor smuggler and took his goods. Got caught and sentenced to eighteen years without parole. He and I are the only killers in this bunch... well there's Thajix, he killed one of those mercenaries that came by here. The rest have basically been doing time for assault and robbery and the such."

"Cool story bro!" Darius yelled, cocking his rifle as he lay in his cover.

"Isn't it? My fellow turian?" Avil Pardo laughed heartily. "You know we're being good people. Merely slipping crushed sleeping medicine into their food. We could have just killed them, but we wouldn't be good turians if we did, would we?"

"I have to admit, I'm a little impressed with how you and your boys handled the little masquerade of yours!" Brooklyn shouted, loading an alternate ammo drum into the grenade launcher, this one full of incendiary shells. "But you made a big mistake, that being insulting my ship!"

"Ha, ha. Yeah?"

"Yeah!" With that, Brooklyn popped out of cover, firing an incendiary grenade through the exposed window of the second floor, where the majority of the shooting came from.

From the loudspeaker, the convict leader gave a horribly loud scream before the speaker itself radiated a sharp clank, as well as a piercing whine, before fizzing out. A burning figure, one of the turian riflemen leaped out, screaming before he fell toward the ground and snapped his spinal cord.

The entire section of the floor was orange with fire, and smoke was billowing out of it like a lit cigarette. Burke leaped up and sprinted toward the factory, Brooklyn yelling for him to return, which he ignored without a word. Idenkin fired a final shot which flew just beside the running human, and closed in out of his line of fire toward the edge of the building.

Idenkin cursed while sitting on the union boss' oak desk, waiting for his Hammer model II sniper rifle, which he liberated from a gun shop, to cool. He looked down the sights once more and contemplated on taking a shot at Darius, even though the only shot he had was at his feet, as well as the thicker spots of his armor. He then shifted his sights to the right, waiting to see if Brooklyn had exposed her head. Eventually she did, and arched the weapon over to aim at him. He squeezed the trigger, the tiny mass accelerated round smacking into the weapon and knocking it out of the other viewport of the guard shack, right on the ground where he killed the asari scout.

"Damn it!" Brook shouted, clutching her wrist from the grazing shot and peeking out to the exit side. Another shot was fired, narrowly missing her head, and blowing off a strand of hair from her head. She ducked back in cover, knowing that she could do nothing but sit on her hands for the time being.

Idenkin shifted his sights over toward Darius' position, seeing that he had his rifle fixated on him and was now firing up at him. The turian convict shouted a horrid curse in his own language, ducking down under the table as a few rounds smacked into the side of the office. He adjusted his scope, and waited for the suppressing fire to cease.

Burke had nearly reached the door to one of the staircases, when a turian had taken position in the staircase window and opened fire on him with a shurikan machine pistol. Two rounds smacked into his shields, taking them down a little over halfway before he cleared the line of fire. The idiotic escaped convict who fired upon him seemed to be shifting it toward the men over to Darius and Brooklyn.

Burke took several deep breaths as he produced his shotgun from the back of his belt, carefully pushing the door open. The staircase was evident to him as he held his shotgun in front of him, scanning the area and sweeping its aim toward the turian prisoner, who continued firing his sub machinegun in long variables, ejecting a thermal clip occasionally.

Burke took aim, then suddenly there was a minor field distortion and a slight hissing sound, signifying that his kenetic barriers had recharged. The turian obviously heard it, and Burke uttered a curse within his own mind. The turian turned firing from the window a few steps up, before Burke fired a single shot and ducked under the railing as he continued to move. Afterwards, he popped up and fired once again, the blowing a hole through his light combat armor and ravaging his internal organs. The turian coughed, slumping back and leaning over the windowsill as he neared full deceased status. Burke continued his ascent toward the staircase, cocking the shotgun and releasing another white hot thermal clip which bounced down the staircase he ran up on.

More exchanging fire was heard, Burke kicking the second door and checking for hostiles toward every corner. He then closed the door and took a deep breath, continuing to ascend the staircase. It was incredibly risky, but he hoped he could dispatch the remaining escaped convicts before Idenkin killed either of his two comrades. This made the situation all the more frantic, and increased the heart rate and adrenaline of the privateer.

Burke peeked through the door to the second floor, seeing a turian figure fleeing as he fired through the window with an assault rifle, and eventually turn and sprint. The human quickly tip toed to the corner, seeing the fiery and smoky area merely a few steps ahead.

He spotted a single turian corpse which had been burned beyond recognition from the blast, the smell being extremely unpleasant, bordering unbearable. He then saw a turian in a striped suit crawling away from the heat and flames, covered in smoke, and suffering burns across his body.

"Shit... you know this really freaking hurts, right?" Avil Pardo coughed, pounding the floor afterward as he lay upon it.

Burke pointed his pistol toward him. "Don't you move a goddamn muscle. You stay right here until I get back."

"You know... this may suprise you... **cough**... but this isn't the worst pain I've been through. I'll live." The tall and intimidating convict leader laughed.

There was a long burst of assault rifle fire from behind Burke, which stripped his shields, a single round penetrating his shoulderblade and passing all the way through. The privateer dropped his shotgun, yelling in pain as the nearby nerve cluster was grazed. He turned and pressed himself against a wall, pulling his striker pistol out and firing several rounds. The disguised convict that shot him was too busy preparing for his next shots to take cover, and he was riddled with pistol rounds, two penetrating both his lungs. He hacked up violet blood, staggering back before hitting the wall and sliding down, dead.

Burke wheezed in pain, pointing the pistol at Avil Pardo, who was crawling toward his shotgun, just ready to pick it up. The human fired a single round into the turian's back, and he made a single convulse and rolled onto his back, groaning.

Craddock stood up, sprinting and dueling with the pain that paraded through his left shoulder. He wounded around the corner toward the room where the civilians were spooning. He kicked the door open, seeing exactly what he did not want to see.

The convict in the medic's uniform from earlier had a heavy pistol to the head of a somewhat conscious civilian. "Get away! We can work this out! Let's make a deal!" He cried frantically. "We don't have to shoot up the place anymore ya hear?"

Burke merely aimed the pistol toward him as his arm bent all the way back so his hand could clutch his exit wound. He did not have any words to tell him, and instead fixated his sights on the turian prisoner's head.

The prisoner responded by turning his pistol on him and releasing a few shots. They fruitlessly dug into his shields, Burke falling back around the doorway.

One of the turian civilians laying on the cot grumbled, mustering all his strength to stand up, even with the sleeping medication still in his body. He grabbed a scalpel from a desk and stepped behind the panicking turian convict, who was still shouting insults to the human. With all the remaining strength he could conjure, he grasped his head and stabbed the neck of the criminal until the pistol was dropped, and he fell to the ground.

Burke peeked around, seeing the two turians were tiredly and lazily kicking the medic pretender as he was sprawled on the ground. He breathed in, then ran back to the staircase to proceed towards the roof.

Idenkin looked through the sights once again. "Come on you hacks." He saw that Darius had switched his cover to where Burke had originally been. As far as he know, Brooklyn was still crouched in the guard shack. "Show yourselves you cowards-"

He heard heavy breathing outside of the open door of the office. Idenkin's mandibles twitched in a nervous pattern, and he lifted his sniper rifle and turned it toward the entrance, where he saw Burke taking aim. The human doubled out of the way, the sniper shot hitting the green open door instead.

The turian convict rounded to the side of the table, heaving it and letting it fall to it's side, quickly taking cover behind its top and aiming the sniper rifle toward the entrance.

From behind him, a disc grenade was thrown through the window, embedding itself into the bottom of the metal desk and beeping.

Idenkin dropped his rifle and leaped over the table, running toward the door. "Shit, shit, shit, shi-"

He was just out when the charge detonated, sending half the office in a cataclysmic burst of conventional explosives. He leaped, the concussion of the explosion carrying him toward Burke, where he was tackled, the pistol knocked out of his hands.

Burke regained consciousness a mere two seconds later. The two were tobogganing along the sloped segment of the roof, Burke's striker pistol sliding just out of their reach. Both of them propelled themselves with their feet and hands in an attempt to reach the glissading sidearm.

Burke grit his teeth in anxiety and pain. It was some consolidation that he was sliding faster than Idenkin. The turian had reached out one hand to try to grasp his hair on more than one instance.

They were nearing the edge, Burke began growling in fear and pain as his fingers grasped the heavy pistol, bringing it to the side. His index finger squeezed the trigger, blasting a clean hole through the core of Idenkin's cranium.

The freshly dead turian convict slid off the edge, his limp body twirling in mid air like the visage of a ballerina, just before plummeting into the ground. Burke grasped the edge of a lightning rod and holding on for dear life. He gasped as he lay on his back, the bare minimum of breath in his lungs as he fought for air. His back partially positioned itself on the roof gutter, adding as additional support to keep him from falling. He looked up to the sky, seeing the turian frigates searing overhead after entering the atmosphere, as well as hearing his comrades dash out of cover and yell his name. He then entered a state of semi unconsciousness, in an attempt to preserve or regain the least bit of strength.


	12. A Whiter Shade of Pale

**Chapter 11 – A Whiter Shade of Pale**

"Ready, sir?" The turian medic spoke, a turian rifleman assisting and getting near the legs of the big man. "Up you go." They both grasped Burke and placed his muscular form upon the stretcher, shortly after Burke's trench coat was removed, and both the entry and exit wound plugged with medigel and disinfectant cream. The medical supplies were from Brooklyn's kit, as turian medical supplies generally had no effect on humans, or at worst, were just as deadly as the wound they received.

"Is this really necessary?" Burke croaked, lifting his head up and looking at the surroundings as they laid his trench coat over him for warmth.

"It's all procedure, human." The turian medic replied, his hands on the spokes of the stretcher as he and the other marine carried him to the parked utility vehicle. "We have to carry you to safety, and treat this area as if it's still a combat zone. That's the way the turian marines do it up."

"A quart of a credit for every time they've literally done things up." Darius responded as he and Brooklyn sat in the back of the turian utility vehicle. Burke was slid into the floorspace area by the two turians, who patted him on the ankle after they were sure his condition was stable.

Burke lifted his head up once again, seeing Avil Pardo being taken away on a stretcher and on life support, having survived being shot by Craddock and being burnt alive by Brooklyn. He was still quite aware of his surroundings, and lifted a hand up and directed a rather offensive gesture into his direction as he passed by.

"Oh, and... sergeant-major Macerdin, sir?" The marine rifleman who helped carry Burke asked as the vehicle's engines were starting.

"Just call me Macerdin." Darius responded.

"General Chandis told me to tell you this: He is going to be on a two week leave in the Citadel, and he'd like to meet with you and talk to you." The marine saluted and walked off.

Darius' right mandible extended, then began trembling. "Khandis is a general now?"

"Funny how time flies." Burke grinned toward his turian comrade, smiling and patting his massive foot.

Darius kicked his hand out of the way. "Seems like only just a few hours ago I was doing missions with a _Lieutenant_ Chandis back in S.P.E.A.R."

"Instead you were spooning with us inside a salarian fighter." Brooklyn replied, taking a sip of water from a canteen.

"Time sure has flown by..." Darius nodded, watching the scenery go by in the vehicle.

The utility vehicle parked near one of the frigates. The Eclipse troopers were bound and formatted in a single file, ready to board the turian vessel. Two turians with shotguns flanked Commander T'Wani as she approached the back of the vehicle, Burke standing up and putting his trench coat on, his good arm through its sleeve, and his injured side merely covered by the jacket's shoulder. He stepped off and surveyed the scene.

"I'm sorry sir, but the commander really wishes to speak with you once again." One of the armed turians sighed. They were wearing crewmen uniforms rather than marine combat armor, suggesting that they were simple servicemen called to shepherd the mass amounts of prisoners due to the lack of trained marines.

Burke held out his left hand from between the lapels in his trench coat. "It's fine, I wanted to talk to her again as well."

"Four minutes." The same turian reminded, and turned a deaf ear and faced another direction.

T'Wani nodded. "I looked you up, Mr. Burke Craddock. You didn't show up on Alliance service records or the Council's."

"You seem to be forgetting that we don't actually exist." Burke chuckled. "But you managed to dig out my full name. You must have found something."

T'Wani frowned. "Yeah. I did. Found out at the last second." She turned her body toward the sunset. "It was rather disheartening to find out you were a fucking Blue Bonnie, of all things, Staff Sergeant Craddock."

Craddock sighed and looked toward his boots, scratching his brow. He did not exactly enjoy the prospect of being reminded of his employment in the ranks of those savages. "I haven't been in the Blue Suns since '74, commander. Even had my tattoos removed."

"Well how nice of them to keep you in the records." T'Wani turned her head toward him.

"So, you came all the way here into Citadel space with one forth of a standard starborne brigade to look for equipment they stole from you?"

"I'm almost certain some other folks I know of came here for the same purpose."

"To find your weapons?"

"Yeah." The asari commander closed in further toward him, almost toe to toe. "Listen Sergeant Craddock, Eclipse had a real good and very well respected Director of Supply and Engineering, by the name of Jordan Campbell. He was even great at negotiating, something we don't usually do. Then somebody iced him in a batarian VIP shelter on some shitty, swampy planet called Golmes. Funny thing is, he was there to try to find out what happened to the equipment WE paid for, and was instead sold to somebody else."

Burke crossed the fingers on his left hand as they were concealed under his jacket. "That's a real drag. You think the batarians may have done it?"

"More like a human and a turian from what that particular batarian terrorist cell told us. They also escaped in a large fighter sized vessel. Sound familiar?" She shot him a look that wound have rusted metal.

"Ah, I see where this is going."

"Burke..." T'Wani began pacing along a straight path. "I've known just about nothing but chaos and hell my whole life. Was constantly scorned in academies for being a pureblood, coupling parent left and I haven't seen her again, birth parent was murdered when I was still a maiden. Eclipse life ain't no picnic. Killed a few people, tortured and shook down a few more. Saw people overdose on red sand, kill eachother over single credits or just looking at another one funny, and then I meet three privateers who ran with the Blue Suns, and of all things, and of all things he treats us with respect and doesn't murder us. A freaking pirate of all people." She stopped and turned toward him. "You may have killed a sizable portion of my force, but even the men were surprised and quite grateful for working out a peaceful deal."

Burke shook his head and laughed. "Commander, are you telling me Eclipse mercenaries really don't know a thing about honor?"

"They really don't. I thought you formerly being part of one of the most dangerous mercenary gangs in the terminus systems would soften you up to that fact."

"Yeah, that's true." Burke responded. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I'm quite fair for a senior officer in Eclipse. I'll give you a two day head start before I tip the Directors off to who actually did this."

"Let's make it three. You still got your omni tool on you?" He brought up his own bluewire tool and began fumbling with it. She nodded and brought up her own. Burke began uploading files, mostly photos and scans he took.

"All this is information and proof that the Blue Suns stole your suits." Burke whispered, to avoid the turians hearing. "You were right. Those convicts in marine uniforms were hiding a suit the actual military here shot down. Even dragged the dead batarian out of it and hid him in a closet."

T'Wani nodded. "Thanks for everything, Craddock. You realize this still doesn't change anything regarding Campbell. You just bought yourself some time."

Burke was already walking back to the vehicle. "Well when you find proof that I actually committed such a heinous crime against one so gentlemanly and noble as an Eclipse director, let me know and I'll roll over and die for you."

"Would you leave my hit squads so unsatisfied?" T'Wani managed to smile as the two turians signaled her to fall in line with her underlings. "I'll see you later, Burke Craddock!" Her loosely bound hands lifted up and managed a wave, and she followed the guards toward the frigate.

Another vehicle was rolling toward the second turian frigate's hangar bay, Commander Waldorn, an ensign with a datapad, and two armed marines, standing side by side as the vehicle rolled near them.

The commander and his retinue circled around toward the back, stepping inside and inspecting a mass of metal under a large sheet of stiff polyester. He lifted the flap, and his mandibles immediately fluttered like the wings of a falcon. He was seeing a burnt out and battered chassis of heavy combat armor, painted a bluish green, like cyan or turquoise. The ensign beside him nodded and documented it on his datapad.

They both stepped off. "Ensign, are you religious?"

"Uh, more spiritual, like most turians." The ensign replied, compacting the datapad into his breast pocket. "Why?"

"You ever feel like being theistic at all?" The commander patted on the hood of the vehicle and stepped back, and it rolled into the ramp and toward the bay.

"I... uh. I often contemplate on the existence of some sort of God at times..." The ensign was getting rather confused.

"Well, I suggest you start praying to some sort of God, because we'll probably need all the help we can get. Even if it's from a superstition." He followed the marines and the Ensign up the ramp, the latter which was both baffled and concerned. "We'll need a guard detail in the cargo hold just to be safe. Get the XO to forward the details to Citadel Intelligence. They have some cargo to pick up."


	13. Cuno

**Chapter 12 – Cuno**

_January, 2160_

_17 Years Earlier_

The wheat acreage was trembling when the tractor hummed and spurred to life, the wheels turning and the engine hoeing the vehicle forth as it head toward the desired location. It was a fairly old piece of property, recently modified to respond to remote omni tool commands remotely and automatically.

Seventeen year old Burke Craddock, in his laced trainer shoes, farming slacks, t-shirt and orange jacket, shut his interface tool off and fixated his eyes on the construction about half a mile away. Various vehicles were bulldozing and digging trenches into the soil as use for irrigation channels. He then turned to the left of him where the noon sun was positioned, seeing that the irrigation to that end of the farmland had been completed. Incisions dug neatly into the grassy soil, providing assistance for the growth of fine rice, wheat, grain, beans, in addition to the local exotic crops.

The planet of Cuno was a garden/agricultural world world located in the Ferehnbach system of the Crescent Nebula, settled by a group of human separatists who were bitter and weary of the Alliance. It was one of the very first independent human colonies, and a large supplier of food for the region, including Illium (mostly for its native wild game) as well as nearby space stations. More recently, batarian food and trade conglomerates had arrived to establish business partnerships with the local farmers and hunters. This proved to be extremely lucrative, as they assisted in growth and finance. As with most garden worlds located in the nebula, it was rather well known for an awe striking landscape of grass, pine trees, and lovely azure middays and amber dusks. Though Burke, in his spiteful adolescence, would not hesitate to admit that he believed this was not the life for him. He complied with his father's requests and chores nearly unquestionably, at least after years of parental conditioning.

Still there was an incredible sereneness and solace on this planet that he was certain that no other world could improve on, let alone emulate. He looked back at the tractor, seeing the wheat being harvested under the combine. This years harvest proved to be the same as nearly every other; tedious and challenging to sow, and easy and quite rewarding to reap.

He thought he had heard a child call to him, synching with a heavy clank coming from the equipment on the irrigating site. He looked behind him and saw a slender asari child no more than around seven or eight, waving and running toward him. Burke immediately grinned, running away from the field and onto the trail.

"Mom and I are back!" She announced, giggling.

"Right on time, too Libra!" Burke smiled gingerly and shared a hug with the child. "How was your trip to the monastery?"

"Well!" They walked alongside one another on the dirt path in between fields, leading toward the homestead. "It started out really boring, but it became really great. I even got a new biotic amp! One of the Prodigy lines from the Armali Council."

"I hear those are really good." Burke looked up at a trading conveyor that flew into the atmosphere, most likely heading for the merchant guild's starport.

"Yeah. Still not as good as the Savant brands though, but it's still great." Libra responded, looking toward two buckets near the road. "Watch this! Don't tell mom I did this though. I'm not really supposed to."

She threw her right arm up and her left behind her, being swallowed in a purplish field of energy. Her farming attires wrinkles as well as her necklace beads began fluttering in slow scales like the keys of a piano. The two buckets began to ascend off the ground, suspended by the biotic power as they slowly span around one another, like a couple of spouses waltzing in a circle. The smaller bucket began to float higher than the other, dropping into the larger.

Libra released it, the joined buckets plopping into the ground. "Woah!" Burke clapped his hands. "That was... pretty awesome! I'll be sure to think twice before getting into an argument with you."

"Haha! You'd better not!" They continued walking, Libra and the human teenager cackling. "Kidding. I wouldn't use biotics against you. They can be pretty dangerous after all."

"Yeah especially those... what are they called. Singularities? Aren't they like... miniature black holes or something?"

"Sorta. More like huge magnetic balls of energy. Only without the limit to metal and stuff." Libra stared back at Burke. "Why didn't you come to the monastery with me? You'd make a great biotic."

"I-" Burke frowned and gulped a bit. "I didn't want to be one."

"But your mom-"

"I had an L/na implant installed. I'll tell you about it some other time." Burke put a lid on the topic, Libra's train of thought torn astray by the sudden withdrawal of the subject.

They both walked into the kitchen, the interior lined with the local orange ebony, blue and yellow square tiles along the floor, and a silverly metal surfaces for the refrigerator, counter, sink, stove, broiler, and dishwasher, all designed in a retro futuristic manner. The flat holoscreen above the ice box, the channel tuned toward Quadrant Broadcasting Net (QBN), a human Alliance based networking company.

Jason Craddock sat in the chair at the center table. He was a middle aged man, sporting a blue shirt with suspenders, light brown trousers, and lace-less boots. His face was plastered with a dark brown muttonstache and scraggly hair. A wide stubby glass of ice and a clear, grayish blue liquor laid on the counter, with the farmer's two hands touching it. Burke's father was quite the drinker, but the man could hold his alcohol like Hercules could hold up a truck, and rarely ever appeared anything more than the very least bit intoxicated.

Across from the table, an asari in her matron stage leaned on the stove, dressed in a white leather jacket, leisure trousers, and boots. One side of her face was painted yellow, a symbol representing a third eye that looked almost ancient Egyptian in style. It was not tattooed, but merely removable facepaint.

"Tractor is doing pretty well." Burke told his father, going to the fridge to fetch a bottle of grape juice, nodding to the asari and smiling. "Hello Mrs. Rucinda."

Nahla Rucinda smiled warmly to the human. "Hello, Burke! Did your... surgery go well?"

"A lot better than I thought it was going to be, thanks for asking." He removed the grape juice from the fridge and produced a glass from a cabinet near the side of the fridge.

"That boy didn't have to take any pain medication afterward." Jason proudly announced, raising his glass toward his son, Burke returning by raising a glass of grape juice, both taking a sip in unison afterward.

The anchorman for QBN was now reporting and covering a recent incident where two ambassadors, one a human, and the other a batarian, came to blows during a meeting. The fight was so brutal, that both emissaries, as well as one aide who interfered, had to have medigel dispensed to close lacerations and wounds from bludgeoning one another with hard bound and statuettes.

"Those goddamned Alliance black hats." Jason drawled, taking another sip of his watered down liquor. "They need to stop being so self righteous and xenophobic. It's like they'll never learn from the First Contact War. To top that off, they have knuckle dragging buffoons running the trade ministry."

Libra sat beside Jason, Burke pouring a glass of juice for her and setting it on the table. He then went to lean on the counter, next to the asari. His father was the most socially and fiscally libertarian human in the galaxy as far as he knew, and disliked the Alliance with a hellishly romanticized passion. "Why should I hate the batarians?" He continued his rant. "They've done so much in helping out the common worker, and the colony. I don't agree with their slavery culture, but it's not my problem nor my business to regulate their way of life."

"Maybe because the ones digging the irrigation ditches are indentured drell servants." Burke always liked to add fuel to his dads political tirades, since it never really harmed him.

"Oh, hell Burke. They're being paid, so it's not really slavery or indentured servitude."

"You mean getting free food and quarter and no other rights?" Burke took a long gulp of grape juice, waiting for his dad's outburst.

"Slaves in historic earth were treated far worse than most batarians treat their slaves and indentured servants." He took another drink. "But we'll talk about this later. I wanted to bring this up..."

"El'Je hunting right?" Burke downed the rest of his juice, placing the glass in the dishwasher. "I've been hunting with you for five years and haven't hit anything."

"This years hunting season is a few days away from expiring, son." His father spoke, stepping up and downing the rest of the liquor, walking over to the sink to dump the ice. "We really want to show these two what it's like to hunt dangerous game like El'Je and Creek Varren."

"But I can't shoot worth shit. No matter how many times I practice at the range." Burke sighed, facing his father.

Jason very gently smacked his son on the top of his head. "Language. And son..." He placed one hand on his shoulder. "...I think you'll do it right this time. Plus, when season hits next, you'll be in the latter days of your senior year of high school."

"Please? We'd love to watch you." Libra bounced up and down in her chair. Libra's disarming adorableness got him every time, but deep seated into his desires, was the want to actually take down game as dangerous as El'Je. "I don't like guns anyway, they're loud..." His sister muttered.

"Alright, let's go hunt some El'Je before sunset." Burke agreed, walking away and hearing a yipee as he went to change into his trail boots. "Do I still get the two header?"

"Unless you want to use the Harpoon sniper rifle I got last week." His father cackled.

"Nah, that'd be overkill!" Burke smiled at the absurdity of such a powerful firearm. "I'll stick with the two header!"

Burke stood in the den, motionless for a few minutes. The room was built partially underground, the ceiling sloped and having attached a few side sun roofs that connected to ground level, all which the inner automatic shutters were closed. There was a sofa, a coffee table, and several chairs scattered about the place, with an extranet terminal on one end. An unlit fireplace was installed in the wall to his right, which is the direction he looked.

He stared at the picture of his biological mother, smiling gingerly at the camera. He had hardly knew her, and very scarcely had memories of her. He knew of the sleepless nights after her unexpected demise, the cries for her when he was three or four, the complete confusion, frustration, and ignorance of the subject of death. He long since gotten over the emotional hurdle, but part of his subconscious was still sore at her absence.

He was not sure if his father took the death as harshly as he did, as the only memories, no matter how faint they would be, were him trying to comfort and reason with him.

He looked at a nearby photo of Nahla Rucinda and Jason, putting an arm over eachother. His asari stepmother, a trading ambassador, had comforted Jason and his son through the aftermath of the tragedy. The strong attachment to what remained of the Craddock family had served as a variable for her unconditional acceptance for Jason's proposal for a remarriage.

Burke felt toward Nahla the same way as most children would feel about a step parent. He by no means hated her, he really liked her, especially for bearing the sister he would have never had otherwise. It concluded toward the fact that she just was not, in fact, his actual mother.

It was widely declared that the Alliance officially made first contact with the human species, but the Planetary Republic of Cuno did so a few years beforehand, and that was not exactly common knowledge. It was because of this the farmers and residents of Cunos believed themselves to be more cultured than the Alliance, due to the fact that they negotiated well with the aliens during first encounter as proof that they were more reasonable and well mannered than their parent parliament. Burke always remembered his father declaring his belief in the "Alliance actually shot first" conspiracy theory, among his pile of others.

Every once in a while, Burke would have to meditate on the fact that things were not as bleak as they had the chance of being. This was one such time, and for the moment, he was done. He looked toward the double barreled scatter gun over the fireplace, reaching over and grabbing it off the rack. It was an old fashioned firearm, a foot longer than the compact modern military shotguns.

He sat down at the sofa, grasping at the carton of yellowish self accelerated shotgun cartridges, releasing the catch and drooping the front, exposing empty holes for each barrel. He loaded the shells into these slots, putting eight more cartridges into his belt loops, and placing the hunting cap upon his head.

It was a few hours later that they had placed themselves in the forested hunting ground seven miles away from the Craddock estate. The forests were serene even near sunset, chirping wildlife, minimal buzzing insects, and of course, the wild game.

A single El'Je huffed in satisfaction has he saw one of the Lugrets, a population of small subterranean mammals similar to moles and gophers. A single one of the animals jolted in a spastic stiff motion, turning its head and sniffing the air. The animal's lack in sight was one of many reasons that they were a favorite target among the predatory El'Je.

The El'Je was an animal not unlike a moose, with similar antlers, albeit predatory and sporting fangs and claws on his front feet. The El'Je was not entirely carnivorous, but in reality an omnivore. Though this reserve was used in winters where romping animals were scarce, though several types of plants still survived in the cold.

The beast moved in, gingerly stalking its prey. Little did he know, Jason Craddock sat in a wooden hunting post attached to a tree. On another post, Nahla and Libra sat, eagerly watching the scene.

Once they El'Je was in range of the Lugret's sight, the latter's ears perking up and his fur straight upright, he attempted to dive into his colony, only to be lunged at and grasped by the leg, trying to escape free.

A shot from a sniper rifle blasted off one of his antlers at half length, the sound echoing throughout the forest. The El'Je's felt absolutely nothing, his curiousness causing him to perk upright and drop the creature, who proceeded to dive inside the hole with a comical squealing sound.

Burke emerged from behind the trees, flanking the beast. One barrel fired, the fine steel buckshot accelerating toward it. It was a narrow miss, as a few bits caught the creature, one hitting the lower segment of its neck, the other grazing its left front leg. The El'Je were never in any mood to attack a creature who could fight back, and it roared and skittered away, Burke picking up the pace and chasing after it.

The chase carried them through many meters of woodland. The near tireless El'Je still sprinting through the woodland. Burke was far behind, breathing in heavy, concentrated strokes and carefully picking his footing, while still chasing to the best of his avail. This was not the first time he chased after a fleeing game, though he was certain he could catch this one.

The minorly wounded El'Je, certain that he had escaped his human attacker, stepped toward a nearby shallow waterfall, looking to see if it was okay to cross. He heard a snap to his right, seeing a rock tumble down the meadowside and plop into the river.

Burke peeked down his sights, aiming over a bush. His shortcut plan, as well as his brief distraction had worked. The beast turned his head once again, the human pulling the trigger of his shotgun, the weapon seeming to kick farther than it shot, as usual.

The El'Je laid by the river, killed instantly by one of the buckshot rounds piercing the core of his brain, severing the stem. Burke slowly approached the deceased animal, slain by his hand, instantly feeling remorse over his kill.

Among the sound of rushing water and rustling trees, he could hear footsteps. His father, still running, finally reached his son and placed the butt of his sniper rifle on the ground while leaning down and inspecting the corpse, smiling. "Now that, was a capitol shot."

"I-" A tear ran down Burke's cheek. "I killed it." He had always wanted to join one of the mercenary companies the Terminus System was famous for, but after this, he was having second thoughts about the prospect of taking another life.

Jason stood up slowly, placing a hand on Burke's shoulder, knowing what he was feeling. More footsteps approached, Nahla and Libra awe stricken by the dead predator.

"Aww... you... you killed him..." Libra was feeling the same feeling as her human brother, ready to muster up tears.

Nahla distinguished the same reaction between the two, walking up and placing each hand on the shoulders of the children. "As the Goddess says, when the hunted are laid to rest..." She began a proverb. "They become one with the hunters, in both body and spirit."

Burke was ready to buy into anything to make him feel better, but somehow her words sounded sincere, not matter how potentially superstitious they may be. He looked at the dead El'Je, as his father removed a hunting cup from his belt, using a dagger to cut along his neck and spill its blood into the cup.

Jason then lifted the cup with both hands toward his son, the sides and his fingers red with the fluid. "Hunting ritual. Go ahead, drink it. It's perfectly safe, though really salty." He smiled warmly.

Burke, though slightly reluctant, grasped the cup, slowly putting it to his lips and sipping the warm liquid, the taste salty and metallic.

He could not help but feel in the least bit spiritual, looking back Nahla, who smiled. He half expected his little sister to cringe and gag at the sight, but she seemed to understand it, even if she was in the least bit disgusted. He looked back at his father, who patted him on the shoulder.

"His blood is yours."


	14. Master and the Lieutenant

**Chapter 13 – Master and the Lieutenant**

_May 2174_

_Three years earlier_

Twenty-eight year old Brooklyn Seltzer sat in the chair in the waiting room, her military dress shoes tapping up the carpeted floor. To entertain herself further, she looked out the nearby window into the Alliance Naval Academy campus to see a detachment of midshipmen marching along with one of the full officers, holding flags, lancer assault rifles, and batons. It was nearing the end of the semester, and these 'freshmen' were marching in perfect formation and synchronization, all a result of the intense training from the higher ranking midshipmen and officers.

The Creswell Systems Alliance Naval Academy was a former academy for the Australian navy, converted for use to train the best of the space faring Alliance naval officers. These academies numbered seven on earth, one for each continent. Brooklyn had spent a year at the academy in Annapolis before being transferred over to Creswell, for purposes that she would have rather not discussed openly to anyone who asked.

"Midshipman Seltzer?" The receptionist called out, leaning over her desk to spot the woman in question. "The head dean of Naval Aviation would like to see you now."

Brooklyn stood up and nodded, adjusting the collar and lapels of her black Alliance naval academy uniform. She continued onto the office door, her throat drawing back and swallowing a large amount of saliva that gathered under her tongue. The mandatory meeting's subject matter was left to the imagination, as she had no idea what to expect Commander Trevarthen to discuss with her today.

She grasped the door's handle, the ingress swinging open and revealing Commander Trevarthen in all her short, grayish blonde haired glory, shuffling papers. On her desk sat a six foot tall skinny man in much more relaxed naval clothing, including a T-shirt, suspenders, blue trousers and standard issue boots. He looked to be no more than around twenty-five, sporting jet black hair and a set of scowling, angry hazel eyes. Brooklyn merely froze a few moments before standing at full attention.

"At ease, midshipman." Commander Trevarthen ordered, not making eye contact as she rubbed some ink on a nearby paper, and continued typing away at her holographic flat screen computer console. "This is Staff Lieutenant Paterson of Alliance Naval Intelligence, he'll be sitting in on this meeting."

"Don't fucking eyeball me, midshipman." Paterson growled, not inching a muscle off the desk where he leaned. Brooklyn was scarcely aware that her eyes turned to glance at the lieutenant once again, and blinked, her eyes leering straight ahead of her once again. This was not a particularly decent first impression the intelligence officer was providing, but it was not rare for full blooded naval officers to thumb their noses at academy students.

"Midshipman 2nd Class Brooklyn Chosokabe Seltzer." The commander brought up her file. "What exactly are you doing here, Ms. Seltzer?"

"I beg your pardon, ma'am?" Brooklyn asked.

"Oh, she didn't make the question blatantly accessible or anything!" Lt. Paterson responded in a raging sarcastic manner as he leaned forward, an angry face that could only be matched by Saint Michael himself. "Answer it for shit's sake!"

Brooklyn bit her upper lip. "I'm here because you sent for-"

"Don't miss the point. Why are you in the navy?"

Naturally, Brooklyn was still wondering what the lieutenant was doing here in the meeting. The military intelligence officer in a meeting with the dean was certainly a cause for concern. "I'm here to be a pilot. For Mother Earth and Humanity."

"Yeah, and I'm here to get free hemorrhoid ointment from the medical plan." Paterson piped, shrugging his shoulders. "Face it, commander. She's probably like the others who enlist; waiting for a chance to blow up a transport ship full of turian children because she's sore one of their daddies kicked her daddy in the nuts during First Contact."

Trevarthen made a deceiving smile, ignoring Paterson's previous take. "Yes. You're here to be a pilot. Slated to graduate soon. Completed the final training exercise just yesterday, the Crucible Hour. How did it feel actually handling a frigate and journeying between mass relays?"

"I believe I earned those wings fair and square, ma'am." Brooklyn confirmed.

The young and brash lieutenant did not answer to that particular statement. He straightened his posture, his rump lifting off the edge of the table and his legs stepping forth, pacing around the room.

"Well, your file, specifically your pre-military records have come across as rather peculiar to practically everyone who has read them." She brought up the additional files by flicking her fingers across the navigation interfaces. Brooklyn was somewhat curious enough to have the desire to ask if she felt the same way, but instead resisted, as was expected of her.

"Well I really have to admit, midshipman..." Paterson spoke, taking out a stick of chewing gum from his pocket and placing it between two of his molars. He stepped closer to Brooklyn, but still far away enough to where he could yell at her and not cause superficial damage to her ears. "...when I read your file, one would think you probably wanted to prove something."

Brooklyn scowled, not answering.

"A freaking four-point-one on your high school grade point average. A big fat diploma from Cornell Law, with a membership in the Stubjack Society. You're an ivy-league attorney, not a helmsman in the fleet. With something like that you could be making millions of credits defending rugby players and actors after they bludgeoned their spouses to death with their trophies or guild awards!" One side of his mouth mashed his chewing gum like cattle would chew cud. "Seltzer, what are you doing in my navy?"

"That's one reason why I didn't do anything with the law degree." Brooklyn retorted. "I realized a little too late that lawyers really are credit chomping toolboxes and lying assholes."

"Watch your fucking mouth midshipman, you are in the presence of goddamn superior officers!" Paterson did not bat an eye or move a limb even when shouting like an angry demon.

"Aye, aye sir." Brooklyn complied, looking down at her feet again. Trevarthen was merely watching in anticipation, her hands folded upon the desk.

"What the hell are you doing with that hairstyle, Seltzer?" Paterson was referring to Brooklyn's front left section of her hair being dyed blonde upon dark. "Do they really let midshipmen disgrace their uniforms like this?"

"No excuse, sir." Brooklyn decided it was best to just give in to the intelligence officer's overbearing demeanor, and let him take the lead in this tango of military hotheadedness.

"Drop in the bucket compared to some other stuff you did. Got into a fight with a midshipman one class ahead of you at Annapolis so they sent you down here to Creswell, huh?" He began pacing along a line in the room. "Even hacked a basic training firefight simulation back in '70 to give you an edge. Who the hell do you think you are? James Tiberius Kirk?"

"No sir."

"Right." He popped his gum once again, sitting back on the edge of the desk while crossing his arms and legs. "You're not Captain Kirk. Because Kirk wouldn't be indirectly responsible for killing his drill instructor in a terminal overload explosion, let alone dye his fucking hair like a slutty tabloid model."

Brooklyn was starting to lose her patience with the lieutenant, but still controlled her breathing and resisted the urge to make murderous glares.

"Yeah, we know the military tribunal you went to ruled you not responsible for Gunnery Chief Joseph Brenna's untimely demise, but we all that was probably because the Alliance is constantly desperate for new recruits that they're willing to sweep anything under a rug."

"Your family..." Trevarthen muttered, staring at the screen again.

"Second of four children. Older brother is in middle management in Sirta Foundation, younger sister is in medical school in Tokyo University, and the youngest brother is still in high school. Did I get that right?" Brooklyn still abstained from response, but was quite impressed by Patersons memory capacity.

"Mother currently making progress in a psychiatric hospital, because of the death of your father." Paterson leaned forward. "How did dad die, Ms. Seltzer? Was it turians? Corporate spies? Natural freakin' causes?"

"Sniper took him out." Brooklyn looked back up at him, breathing and speaking through closed teeth. "If you're so intelligent, why don't you tell me?"

Brooklyn immediately regretted what she had just said in her internal, but it looked like the lieutenant was going to ignore the insubordinate comment. He instead leaned back, his mouth prancing as he chewed the spearmint gum. "So even after all this time, you had plenty of months to be on the rag over this crap, why didn't you join the fleet sooner?"

"I didn't make decisions as fast as I do now. Sir." Brooklyn glared at him. "I'm pretty goddamn serious about this, and I certainly was not that way at Cornell. Just ask the professors, and the lady who graded my BAR exam, which I barely passed."

Trevarthen merely smiled at the scene in front of her, Paterson slowly turning his head to see the dean-commander's reaction. "Midshipman Seltzer, during a recruit's time at basic training, and their enrollment in any Alliance military academies, they are always observed by particular branches of the navy. Staff Lieutenant Paterson here, has been observing students like you for quite some time. What do you think of the midshipman, lieutenant?"

Paterson leaned over and spat his chewing gum into a wastebasket, then approached Brooklyn closer, his military boots heel-toeing perfectly. "Ms. Seltzer, I think you're a prudish, upper middle class ivy-league punk with an attitude problem and a mid life crisis that came a little too early." He stopped, his arms unfolding and placing his hands at his hips. "And for that, I think you're just the type of person Naval Intel needs."

Brooklyn finally got the hint. Even with her Cornell University education, she was not exactly expecting this.

Trevarthen stood up, circling around the desk. "Midshipman, if you were to enroll in the Naval Intelligence wing, you would ultimately skip your fourth academic year at Creswell, but the initial bonus pay is more than reasonable, and you will get to use your pilot wings for the best of purposes, and hold the rank of First Lieutenant."

"Would make the fam more financially stable after what happened to your father, especially since one of your sister is still in college and your younger bro may be on that way. Pretty good deal if you ask me." Paterson raised his eyebrows.

"You would spend more time away from Earth however, but from what I hear, and what the lieutenant obviously knows, it would never a dull moment." Trevarthen leaned back against her own desk.

Paterson tilted his head. "It's your lucky chance. Lots of action, and good pay.

After the meeting they were in the downstairs lobby, the head dean still in her office. Paterson handed Brooklyn a folder full of papers. "Keep in mind that this stuff is really classified. That's why we're only running it through paper, and not the net. Don't lose any of this or show it to other midshipmen, or even faculty members." Brooklyn grasped the folder and inspected it. It was unlabeled by name, but had a case file.

"You'll have a few days to study this." Paterson continued. "Come meet me by the pier at 8:00 at Tuesday. I'll page your omni tool to remind you."

With that, he stood at full attention, saluting Brooklyn, who returned. "Carry on, Midshipman."

He trotted outside of the lobby doors, grasping the blue beret under his belt and placing it atop his head. Brooklyn looked back at the file, breaking the seal, but making sure no one else in the building was around. Curiously, she glanced through the papers, one of them having a photograph of a man in Blue Suns armor, brandishing a five o'clock shadow beard, cropped hair, and an assault rifle, one foot placed upon an unknown wounded and bloodied man who lay on the ground. The dossier identified the man, as "Craddock, Burke J."


	15. Turians Don't Cry

**Chapter 14 – Turians Don't Cry**

_Febuary, 2177_

_Present Day_

Darius laid on his back and gasped, breathing a sigh of relief as a sense of satisfactory euphoria swept his loins. The asari prostitute collapsed atop him, the turian reeling back as her shoulder struck his face, leaving it there as she caught her breath. Not bothering to let her know that she was blocking off his airway passage, he simply waited it out.

She raised herself up once again, Darius keeping his hands upon her bare waist, gasping for air once again. "Th-thanks." He muttered.

"Your welcome." The harlot responded in a toneless, dispassionate voice, not bothering to make eye contact as she removed himself from him, sitting on the edge of the bed. "You sure you're alright? Want me to use my hand or anything?"

"No, I'm good, thanks. I gotta head somewhere soon." He sat up on the bed, refastening his leisure suit which he opened in the proper spot for the encounter. The asari stood up, showing off her heavily tattooed back that started from her shoulders to her tailbone. Her feet carried her through the length of the hotel room toward the bathroom.

"Listen I'll probably be gone when you get out, I'm leaving the money on the coffee table." Darius produced a robust credit chit, which he held up for her to see. The asari turned, eying it and nodding. "Unless, uh... well..." Darius scratched one of his mandibles with his thumb. "I'm having dinner with some friends... you wanna... you know... come along?"

She glared at him with a pitying smirk, suppressing the urge to laugh. "You're pathetic." She chuckled, continuing into the bathroom.

Darius turned, placing the credit chit on the designated spot, turning and heading toward the door. He heard the shower head start to run in the water closet. He paused as he took his cap off the rack, placed it over his head, and made his way toward the hotel hall. "I can see why folks get arrested for battering prostitutes now..." He muttered as he pressed the door control and head for the elevator.

The particular segment of Zakera ward inside the Citadel was bustling that evening, as many of its laborers were just now getting off work. In some of the more narrow passages and halls, Darius could not cross them without brushing his shoulders against five pedestrians. Citadel Security constables watched over the herds, backs to the walls and hands swinging their electric truncheons.

He passed several cheap dining stands that sold noodles, sandwiches and greasy meats, usually packed with hungry working class 'Dellers' (slang for Citadel citizens) just trying to get a quick dinner. Darius then saw an opening that led into the interior of a spacious restaurant, neon letters in purple and red above it spelling "The Aquatic Vector", a local restaurant, and his meeting spot.

Darius stepped in, hearing the pounding music, seeing the salarian usher in a rather expensive looking business suit. "How many?" He piped, looking up from his reservation list.

"I'm here for the Chandis party." Darius responded.

"Second table from the bar. Enjoy your meal." The receptionist nodded, continuing to watch for available customers.

Darius passed several waiters and waitresses, taking an eyeful of the fish in the large tanks built into the wall before spotting Brooklyn, as well as a familiar turian with reddish skin and a military uniform. The turian turned his head, standing up and nodding his head respectfully. It was then, Darius noticed one of his legs was prosthetic, starting just below the knee.

"Well if it isn't Sergeant-Major Macerdin." Chanis extended his hand.

He shook the hand of General Chandis. "It's been a while Indul, sorry about the leg. Did they really have to amputate it?"

Macerdin chuckled. "The batarian pirate you saw that shot me back in '73 was using rounds imbued with an exotic toxin. Gave it a few years until it started eating away at my flesh, and it was diagnosed too late to treat it, so it had to go. I'm just glad it wasn't anything else."

Brooklyn and Darius both laughed at the comment. "Yeah no kidding. Hey Brook, is Burke coming, or-"

"He's-" Brooklyn gulped, dressed in her usual brown leather mercenary jacket, slacks and boots. "He's in the restroom."

"Ah." Darius got the hint. "Well I was just about to head there myself. I'll, uh... go say hi to him."

Burke laid a moderate rail of red sand out on the sink counter, farthest away from the door as he used a straw he took from the table and placed it in his nose, the bottom end hovering over an end. His bottom eye lids ascended toward the border of his iris, one finger pressing down on his free nostril. He inhaled slowly, then picked up the pace as the drug flew into his windpipes and down into his lungs.

He heard the door open when he was halfway into it, coughing and hiding the powder with his messenger bag. He looked over quickly to see Darius, and he breathed a rather loud and alarming sigh of relief, jumping up on him and embracing him. "Dare! It's good to see ya man!" He yelled, kissing him on one of his mandibles.

"For crying out loud, Burke!" Darius threw the intoxicated human off of him. "I invite you to meet an old friend of mine, a well respected one at that, and you're here doing rails in the bathroom!" The turian picked up the messenger bag off the counter to see the evidence of the red sand, which had partially been mashed astray.

"Nah, nah, it's uh- it's alright." Burke produced a vial from his pocket, full of a gunky yellow liquid. "I got this supplement here... to er- UH- er- eh kill the side e-effects." He rolled up one sleeve, ready to bite the cap off the needle hypo before he dropped it.

Darius sighed, walking over to the hypo and picking it up, popping the lid off. "Hold still." He placed the needle into the side of his arm, distributing the substance, and patting him on the shoulder afterward.

"Get your things and go." He placed the needle back into the messenger bag, ready to swipe the red sand off the counter before Burke grabbed him by the wrist and flung it away. "I'll be done in a second. Hang on." He sounded like he was already regaining some ounce of sobriety, but was still somewhat zany.

Darius nodded, walking toward the door, keeping watch unless someone were to barge in. "You're lucky C-Sec doesn't hang around here."

"Well (snort), they say this place is owned by a salarian mob boss." Burke wheezed, wiping his nose and rubbing the remaining narcotic substance into the interior of his nostrils.

"Doubt it, but I wouldn't be entirely surprised." Darius looked toward his feet. "You know... I feel kinda hypocritical trying to goad you out of your drug use."

"Let me guess: You nailed an asari hooker at the hotel?" Burke placed the pack of red sand in the bag, as well as the straw.

"Yeah, I certainly did." Darius should have known. "It just so happens that you're addicted to drugs... and I'm into vice."

Burke adjusted his jacket and patted the remaining red sand out of his beard. "Why don't you ever hire a turian prostitute? Aren't they cheaper?"

"Practically non-existent, as a matter of fact. Turian women won't swallow their pride for anything, especially making credits off of a tumble." He would rather have not had Burke mention turian females for his own arcane reasons, but the topic was inevitable.

Burke placed the bag over his shoulder and patted the turian on his back. "The turian people are a race of integrity and honor. That's why we hired you along."

"Yes, with so much integrity that some of us hire asari escorts to put a damper on our sexual frustrations." Darius made a chuckle. "Come on, let's go eat."

"So you went to the academies on earth?" Chandis asked, his appetizer bowl of turian shellfish soup being served in front of him as he placed a napkin under his collar. "I have to say, the Systems Alliance has some very talented people in command."

"I haven't really been keeping up since I left." Brooklyn poured the bottled Heighliner brand beer into the chilled glass that was just served to her. "My last post was on board the Istanbul, a brand new cruiser at the time. I left soon after an assignment."

"We all do eventually. Talk to Darius about it." The general chuckled, taking a sip of the hot soup. "Was Mr. Craddock in the service? Where did you meet him?"

"He's a former Blue Sun." Brooklyn eased back an ounce or two of beer, swallowing and setting the glass back on the table. "But don't tell him I told you this."

Burke and Darius walked into hearing range of the party's table, Brooklyn smiling innocently at the former who looked at her with suspicious embarrassment, and the two seated.

"So." Burke smiled and took a sip of ice water from the cup, gazing over the menu. "I'm certain Darius and you have quite a few stories to tell."

"Do we ever." Darius chuckled. "You wanna start, Indul?"

"Well." Indul Chandis set his spoon down and used his napkin to wipe his mouth. "As you know, S.P.E.A.R is an acronym for Special Echelon for Assault and Response, the turian equivalent to the Systems Alliance N7s I imagine. So if I told you all of our stories we'd be here till the keepers drag us out."

"He's not kidding." Darius confirmed, placing a hand into a bowl of spiced nuts and chomping on them.

"So I'll tell you one that stands out. Probably the best one." Chandis continued. "So back in 2165 there's this major colony unrest on Partha over a food and fuel tariff..."

"Oh not this story, ANYTHING but this one." Darius laughed in embarrassment, waving his hands.

"Oh they have to know this one, Macerdin." Indul cleared his throat. "So after the tariff was announced, we were called in, even though we usually don't do jobs like this at all. Darius was just a corporal back then, fresh enough to be a little green, but experienced enough to know better."

"Oh, that stung." Darius shook his head.

"So anyway, we drop in, the place is lit up with protests and rioting, most nonviolent. Our job was to secure the communications center and bring it back online, and afterward, set up the broadcast line from the planetary governor so he could try to talk down the rioters. There were these two assholes firing on police and civilians and mixing in the crowd, so we were called in. Darius was told to go to the comm center all alone." Indul's mandibles were twitching with contained laughter.

"I like where this is going." Burke smiled and leaned back, taking a sip of his water. Darius shook his head, slightly embarrassed.

"So were hunting these two assholes. Sergeant Varrick takes out one of them and I'm hunting down the second. Meanwhile in the comm relay, Darius is hacking into the communications center, and he brings it online, only it's a different channel. It's a dance music station from the Citadel, full blast."

Burke and Brooklyn simultaneously burst into laughter, Indul joining in, Darius leaning back and waving them off.

"So- so all the rioters just start bobbing up and down, prancing and banging their heads. We finally track down the second gunman, and I tackle him while he's just standing there in an alley, wondering what the hell was going on. Darius saved the day." The general continued to laugh, the story never getting old for him.

Brooklyn was in tears as she clutched her chest, and Burke had his head in his plate as the breath was drawn from his lungs from the laughter. Darius then gave in and chuckled. "Okay, maybe it is a little funny."

Brooklyn took her napkin and dabbed her eyes. "Oh, man. That was rich."

The general looked confused. "I thought you humans and the asari only did that when you were grieving or hurt by something."

"What? Tear up? Not limited to that." Burke corrected.

"I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. You've never cried before, or had something?" Brooklyn asked, placing the napkin back in her lap.

"Haven't I told you this before?" Darius asked. "Turians don't cry."

All four of them were silent for a while, staring at one another with twitching smirks. Burke started snickering, Brooklyn and Darius joining him. Meanwhile, it all turned into howling laughter.

Many a minute later, their entrees had come in, Darius and Indul had ordered turian shark meat. Burke had ordered a salarian style pasta with shellfish, a fruit sauce, and circular shaped dumplings. Brooklyn ordered an earth style steak, with a side item of yams and celery. Most of them had already consumed half of their meals, Brooklyn being a slow eater and still finishing off the side items and had not yet dug into the meat.

"-but as much as I enjoyed my time in S.P.E.A.R, the assignments were just so taxing and dangerous that I'm quite glad to be having a desk job nowadays." Indul Chandis sat back, a glass of green turian wine in his hand as he swilled it. "But most of the stuff I did wasn't compared to what you guys did yesterday." He stood up, taking a small metal box he carried with him, bearing the S.P.E.A.R logo, and opening it, and circling around them. "They told me to deliver these to you personally and informally."

He withdrew the turian Medal of Valor and began pinning it to Burke's jacket. "Oh come on general."

He moved onto Brooklyn, pinning the medal to her jacket. "For going to great lengths to save the Hierarchy's citizens, all of you deserve this commendation."

"Thank you general." Brooklyn nodded.

"How nice, Chandis." Darius nodded as he medal was being pinned into his suit. "This must be my third."

"Guess so." He pat his old comrade on the shoulder, who stood up. They both raised glasses, clinking them together. "To the Hierarchy." They both spoke simultaneously, taking a long sip of turian green wine together.

Burke raised his glass of Goddess Tears. "How about this: To comradeship."

Indul looked back and raised his glass. "May it never be laid to rest." All four of the patrons took a drink afterward, all seating when it was over, and continuing to eat.

Chandis' fork was running across his fish, not eating it as much as he was playing with it. Darius looked back up. "Are you alright there, general?"

"Yes, there's just something rather serious I wanted to talk to you all about, and I'm glad you brought your associates along with you Macerdin." He leaned forward, folding his hands together. "These Blue Suns your hunting... it's possible that they are being led by Gustard Ukoirnas."

Darius and Burke nearly choked on their meals, dropping his silverware into the plate. "Are you serious?" Darius coughed.

Burke began to eat his dumplings even faster when Brooklyn had to ask the question. "Wait a minute, who's Ukoirnas?"

"He's a former general in the turian marines. A real bloodthirsty bastard." Darius answered, feeling he had to down the remainder of his wine after the mere mention of the fallen general in question.

"He had a reputation for being too militant, even by turian standards. A veteran of many anti pirate campaigns as well as the First Contact war, where he led boarding platoons; marines who boarded Alliance ships and killed resisting crew members before capturing the vessels." He leaned back. "The man had no other reason to live apart from war. He badgered his superiors for assignments, made commissions and requests for more campaigns. Eventually, threatened with demotion and reassignment to a desk position, he left the military altogether."

"And then he joined the Blue Suns." Burke scratched an eyebrow.

"Wait a minute, I think I remember... wasn't he your commanding officer, Burke?" Brooklyn leaned over to face him.

"From '69 to '71, yes. Quite a hardass, but respected his men nonetheless."

"Fair enough." Brooklyn continued to slice pieces off her steak. "What do he and the Suns hope to get out of exterminating innocent civilians? Particularly that of his own race."

"That I'm not certain of." The general finished off the remainder of his meal, leaving a credit chit upon the table. "It's possible he's gone rogue within the Blue Suns as well. This makes him all the more dangerous than he has ever been. You must be very careful if you are to take him head-on." He stood up, adjusting his military suit, shaking the hand of everyone at the table. "I'm sorry, but I have to be at a board meeting in a few minutes."

"I thought you on vacation. You still that much of a workaholic?" Darius asked.

"Ha. Indeed. This is Citadel Security related, however. Anyway, take care. Nice to meet you two. Keep up the good work." He stood firm and saluted, grabbing his box and walking out. The three privateers merely sat at their stations, continuing to sip their drinks and eat at their food without saying anything else, shrouding their concern for the assignment.


	16. Drawing Board

**Chapter 15 – Drawing Board**

The Panera had cleared the length of the Citadel's five arms, receiving an all clear blip from one of the C-Sec towers. Brooklyn upped the throttle all ahead two-thirds, steering away from the Destiny Ascension's patrol route. Burke and Darius stood behind her, Darius' arms crossed and Burke leaning on the pilot's chair, two hands on Brooklyn's shoulders.

_"Destiny Ascension to Panera."_ The video feed of the feminine voice showed up on the side screen after a bit of static flared upon it. It was the Councilor herself, bathed in an aura of red light.

"Reading you, Councilor. Go ahead." Brooklyn responded, tapping in the coordinates and trajectory toward the Serpent Nebula's relay.

_"As you know I have been confined to the flagship for the remainder of this crisis. I've been told that Ukoirnas is one of the most dangerous and vindictive generals that ever graced the Hierarchy, and as a result, I was advised to relocate."_

"You don't seriously think Ukoirnas would be foolish enough to assault the Citadel, do you?" Brooklyn continued.

_"The other councilors refused to seek refuge on behalf of the same doubt."_ The asari seemed to have her eyes on something, tinkering with whatever it was, most likely a computer. _"The circuit box you retrieved on Golmes has been hacked and translated by asari military engineers. The device has aged quite a bit, and it seems that even though they made progress, they could not translate it fully, and some code was malformed, but it seems to mention specific locations around the galaxy, which is tied to some sort of chemical it's been mentioning."_

"So it's a map?" Darius asked, looking toward Burke, who shrugged.

"All you gotta do is tell us where to go and we'll be there, councilor." Brooklyn typed in a combination into the dashboard, the autopilot locking on the mass relay.

_"I'm uploading three locations of interest. Salarian intelligence examined the serial number of the weapon the combat suit had been wielding. It seems to have been tied to a human engineer and arms dealer who's running his operation in Tuchanka. It's best to start there."_

A brow on Burke's head ascended. "A human running an operation on Tuchanka? How is it he manages to do this without the krogan strangling him with his own innards?"

The screen flickered a bit. _"From what we've been hearing the Nakmor clan have been trying to deal with the situation for some time now, and is furious that he's using their territory for his operations. We're not sure what's keeping them."_

"Sounds like bribes to me." Darius hypothesized, taking a seat in the gunnery chair.

The councilor did not make a retort to the turian's comment._ "The man has been a thorn in the side of counter terrorism units all over citadel space, and we finally have sufficient evidence to stage a raid on his compound."_

The Panera performed a U-Turn and head toward the proper end of the mass relay, the nose of the fighter in line with the broadside of the colossal prothean contraption toward the desired approached corridor. After receiving the coordinates, Brooklyn began transmitting the mass quantity through the navigation computer, feeding it to the relay sensors.

_"The other two coordinates are yours to study, and it could gain us progress into the investigation. I cannot guarantee however, that the locations will be safe."_ The councilor warned.

"That's why we're here, ma'am." Brooklyn replied, her hand on the relay switch. "To get ourselves killed."

The councilor did her best to remain professional, but it was evident that she fought back a smile and a chuckle. _"Indeed. Oh, and more detail: the event two days ago has gotten you media attention, something we dread quite a bit. You're now known as the Knights of Sargonis by turian and human media."_

"Oh dear, Jesus." Though more or less agnostic, this news warranted Burke to use the name of a human messiah in vein and slap a palm over his own nose.

_"Goddess guide you, Panera. Destiny Ascension out."_ The councilor blessed, not intending a singular pun. The video and audio feed was severed.

When Burke and Darius were moaning from the embarrassment of their fame, the Panera was bestowed with a ray of tunneling energy, the corvette sliding through the passageway and rocketing through the starry heavens after a brief and conclusive flash.

Darius' forked feet were spread seventeen inches apart, standing on the carpeted floor of the captain's quarters. His right arm was extended, the index finger in a semi-perfect line, the wrist rotated ninety degrees. Upon his finger, was a strip of brass, which connected twenty six inches of curved, single edged titanium toward a hilt made mostly of black rubber, a white seal bearing the insignia of an asari monastery at the bottom.

He balanced the katana on his finger. "Nice..." He muttered in amusement. He grasped the blade with his left hand, using his right to clutch the rubber hilt of the blade. He then began swinging it around slowly, mimicking a kata with the prowess of an amateur and the passion of a circus clown.

"Dare, what... the hell are you doing?" Came an unamused scoff from the doorway. Darius stiffened, turning about and holding the weapon behind his back. Burke stood, dressed in a white T-shirt and weathered brown trousers.

"Uh... just... got caught up in swordplay." The turian grasped the scabbard from the bed, placing the tip of the sword in the sheath backwards. Darius was disconcerted by his own failure to properly return the weapon into his sheath, Burke stepping up and grasping both the blade and the scabbard. Burke grinned, silently laughing at his associate's lack of expertise on swordsmanship.

"The way of the sword is somewhat inaccessible, Darius. Nowhere near the level of safety, comfort, and stopping power a gun will give you." Burke spoke aloud, making direct eye contact for a few seconds before turning his sight upon his sword, stepping back and twirling it around in his hand with pristine finger work and perfect circular motion. He grasped it with both hands, swinging it in moderately sped intervals and strikes, much like a calculated Samurai would. He then fluidly stood up straight, returning it into its sheath which he held at his hip.

Darius clapped, his mandibles spreading in a smile. "Bravo, Burke. I pity the poor fucker who gets into a knife fight with you."

"My asari stepmother taught me everything I needed to know about close combat." He walked toward the wall rack where Burke kept his weapons, placing the katana back on its rack just over the smaller sword he kept.

"So are those asari weapons?" Darius asked, inspecting the fine wooden rack.

"Asari made, yes. But not asari designed. Those things go back centuries ago on Earth." Burke took the shorter sword, the fifteen inch blade. "This one's called a wakizashi. Gives you less reach, but its much lighter. A good fallback weapon, too."

"The more I hear about your step mother, the more badass she sounds." Darius voiced in approval, taking the wakizashi and inspecting it, pulling it partially out of its scabbard.

"Yeah, she was somethin', that's for sure." Burke crossed his arms and looked back at the rack on the wall. "I haven't spoken with her in a few years. She wasn't exactly happy with me becoming a mercenary."

"Blue Suns? Or just merc, peroid?" Darius handed the weapon back to him.

"As a matter of fact, I'm not sure." Burke grasped the weapon, placing it back on the trestle, then placing his hands on his hips. "I think she was just grieving over the fact that I could have made a great biotic."

Darius nodded, holding his head low. "Yeah. What kind of implant did you get to suppress your biotic abilities?"

"L/Na. Can't remember what company made it." Burke stepped back to the bed, leaping up and falling on his back into the mattress. "The life of a biotic was just something I never wanted to mingle with. The thought of it terrified me."

"I always wondered what your... sister thought about this decision." Darius asked, staring a bit.

"She never really voiced any sour opinions." Burke placed his hands behind his head, crossing his boots. "After a while she'd send me extranet mail saying that she wishes I'd become a biotic like her." He smiled. "I still mail Libra quite often, just not as much as I used to back when I was in the Suns."

Brooklyn peeked into the doorway, rapping her knuckles on the side of the aperture. "Spooning time's over, gang. I can't take this guy down on my own."

Burke sat up, stepping off the bed. Darius clapped his hands together. "Yeah Brook, I kind of came in here to look for my tungsten ammo block for my Hybrid. It's not in the armor closet."

"Yeah I was using it for a mirror. It's in the drawer of the bedpost." Brooklyn pointed. "See you all in the cockpit."

Darius held an index finger up, interrupted by Brooklyn's sudden scarceness of presence. "Uh... a face mirror?"

"For a pirate, she can be pretty self conscience about her appearance, can't she?" Burke smacked the turian on the shoulder and stepped out of the room. Darius' hand fell back to his side and he promptly followed.

The Panera flew in low orbit over the battered planet of Tuchanka, which was clearly visible in all its majestic, apocalyptic glory. Brooklyn switched on the autopilot, temporary use in mind. She stepped out of her seat, rounding about and bringing up the primary screen, the navigation interface buffering and bringing up an atlas of the Milky Way, three locations brought up. One was the krogan demilitarized zone, and the other two were located in the mid section of the Terminus systems.

Burke and Darius were in their armor, prepping the rest of their equipment as they sat on the floor. Brooklyn pointed up. "Okay here's the skinny. The circuit box you guys retrieved outlined these locations: Tuchanka which we're obviously at now-"

Darius looked around, feigning bewilderment. "Woah, wait we're at Tuchanka? When the hell did we get there?"

"Tuchanka? No..." Burke looked as serious as possible for a moment, then eventually cracked up and commenced a cackling spell.

"No comments from the peanut gallery!" Brooklyn's middle finger poked out of the fingerless glove, extended and in plain sight for both of them. She then used to same hand to point at the other two areas. "The rest of the coordinates point to a mining colony on a terraformed moon called Ble-Gan in the Century Omega cluster, as well as a shitty backwater space station somewhere in Hawking Eta."

"Backwater always means discreet in the privateer rulebook." Burke announced.

"Especially when an adjective like 'shitty' is used for it." Darius stood up and aimed down the sights of the rifle toward the ceiling. "Oh yeah, that's a dead ceiling panel, yes it is."

"You know what this guy we're after looks like?" Burke stood up, cocking his shotgun and compacting it, placing it on the holster on his lower back.

Brooklyn brought up her omni tool, the screen changing to an image of a caucasian human male with red hair, a black business suit with yellow accents, and an alliance combat helmet atop his head. Behind the heavily tinted visor were playful eyes, and his mouth sported a relaxed smirk. "This prick's birth name is Mitchell Wade Reuben Jr, though he goes by the pointless and impractical codename "The Rube". Served as an Engineer in Aldrin Labs Incorporated for half a decade before he decided to turn to the 'good side' and traffic in arms, minerals, and eezo. So far it looks like he's been making good credits off of it."

"Ah, those lovely Blue Suns stock portfolios." Burke announced, feigning nostalgia. "Did you happen to rip that photo from the non-professional gallery of his Social Networking site?"

Brooklyn chuckled at the comment, Darius walking to take a closer look, rubbing his mandibles and chin. "I'd like to see him try and smirk when we get in there and tear his place apart."

"Well if the intel is correct, he doesn't have any guards at the abandoned sewage treatment plant where he operates. He's practically reclusive, as far as we know." Brooklyn shut off the holoscreen and leaned against the pilot chair.

"If we're dealing with sewage I'll bring my re-breather." Burke grasped his pistol and placed it at his side.

"Me too." Darius nodded, trying to suppress the thought of what krogan excrement smelled like. "So we just wade through shit, get in his little holding area, grab him, bring him back to the ship and see what he knows?"

"Basically." Brooklyn nodded, rounding about the chair and plopping back in it, accessing the navigation systems. "I'm going let the Nakmor clan know we're coming in, and why."

"Good luck reasoning with them." Burke spoke leaned over to Darius and whispered. "Three hundred credits says that that smirking tool has the building wired with proximity mines and gun turrets."

"Oh for crying out loud Burke, you know I'd be losing that bet before we even found out." Darius shook his head, Burke responding with a mischievous grin.


	17. Any Colour You Like

**Chapter 16 – Any Colour You Like**

History books and vids described Tuchanka as a nightmare world of dust, disease, and constant civil war. Those particular claims were laid before the world was ravaged by a sea of nuclear fire. As of 2177 CE, Tuchanka was a post apocalyptic hellhole still plagued by the issues it held centuries before the infernal holocaust, as well as several new additions.

The wind was extremely rapid, picking up grains of sand and dust, the howling gale occasionally strong enough to pick up bits of large jagged metal and hurl them into travelers. Nearly every square mile of the planet was dangerous, right down to the underground sections where some krogan clans murdered outsiders on sight, causing the tourists to choose carefully. If that did not harm the visitor, there were festering diseases such as the fungal and spore plagues, and most of all, the ravaging local predatory animals such as the pack hunting varren, insect-like klixens, and titanic thresher maws.

It was safe to say for Burke Craddock and Darius Macerdin that the sewage treatment plant was likely a haven compared to alternate locations around the planet. Both had walked in expecting to wade through krogan excrement, and were surprised to see that the interior was astonishingly well maintained. The sewer junction floor was fitted with minimal waste, and there was a length of bridge plank grating around three feet above the canal, suspended by thin, but staunch poles of metal that attached to the corners that connected the walls and ceiling. The interior was lit only by dim wall lights, as well as the torches of the two privateers.

"You know, it would have been even better if we had a floor plan of this area." Burke commented, his transparent respirator hissing and fogging up. He held his striker pistol at his hip, a light attached to the side and beaming in front of him, Darius walking in front, a turian combat helm over his head.

"Trust me, we're not going in circles. This place isn't that big." Darius never kept his eyes out of the sights of his rifle. The torch attached to his hybrid gun revealed the presence of a sliding door on the wall, two metal steps ascending toward the foot of it. The door was white, sporting red edges with black accents, and a red outline of the outstretched hand of a krogan, an obvious 'do not enter' sign.

"This might be our ticket in, Burke." Darius placed his hand upon the side panel, immediately glowing red and emitting a buzzing sound. "Damn. Locked up pretty tight."

"I've got omni gel if you need it." Burke pat his side and smiled under his respirator.

"Actually, drop a tech flare right where you're standing." Darius turned and pointed where his human squad mate was standing.

"Oh, another one of your wise-ass S.P.E.A.R ideas in the making?" Burke accessed his omni tool.

"No, it's called being thorough. We have no idea where this arms dealing nosebleed is, and it would help to mark our trail and check other spots."

"Yes ma'am." Burke marshed fingers into the holographic interface of his omni tool. Darius gave him a grudging and arctic glare, holding the expression under his helmet while Burke began to prepare a holographic tech flare. "What color do you have in mind?"

"Any color you like..." Darius turned around and began heading the direction he originally wanted to inspect.

"Pink it is then, your favorite color." The tech flare materialized before him, dropping two feet before floating a few inches above the ground. A small holographic sphere emitting a heavy glow which saturated its stretch of the hallway.

"What is it with you humans and your disdain for the color pink?" Darius turned his armored head and stopped, seeing Burke was not catching up to him.

"Well it's pink... I guess." Burke dimmed the flashlight on his striker a few watts.

"It's actually considered a masculine color in most turian cultures."

"Well, good for the turians, then." Burke then stepped to the door panel, his omni tool proacting a spike which inserted into the panel.

"What are you doing? Can't you follow my lead for a change?" Darius called back.

"Just getting this done ahead of time in case we need to." The omni gel was fed into the panel, the tool itself ordaining the purpose of the gel with a few taps and twists of the holographic interface. The gel reacted, bypassing the panel as well as unlocking the door.

It was just a few minutes later before they had finally reached the end of the tunnel, the entrance marked by a rather scopic rectangular blast door, having the same rusty complexion as the rest of the junctions.

"A dead end. Delicious." Burke scoffed, shaking his head.

"Do you not see this door here?" Darius turned a head and glared at him through his tinted faceplate.

"It's probably a pump or septic room where we won't find anything. I doubt this joker set up shop in one of the smelliest areas of the structure."

Their earpieces rang aloud suddenly, a static voice speaking to them. _"Burke, Dare. It's Brook."_

"You finally get a good signal?" Burke replied while Darius tried to find the door panel.

_"Yeah I set a relay beacon at the entrance. Also I finally got the floor plan from the Nakmors."_

"Oh!" Burke shouted, outstretching his arms and annoying his squad mate as he continued to work on the door panel. "So NOW we suddenly get a floor plan!"

_"Well I was going to point you in the right direction but since you'd obviously rather me not..."_

"No-no-no-no. Wait a minute!" Burke was genuinely terrified at the thought of Brooklyn's joke becoming a reality, the pilot already snorting and laughing at his pleas.

_"Ha. Alright, it's at an elevator shaft around seventy meters from where you are now on the main path."_

"We were just there!" Burke felt like hopping on one foot to express the mild enmity he was feeling toward the turian. Darius just stopped what he was doing and once again made a horrible glare toward his human counterpart.

_"Well I suggest you make your way back before Reuben sees you on his hidden security footage and wonders what the hell you're doing, or something. Brooklyn out."_

"Man, wouldn't that be embarrassing." Burke chuckled, looking back toward Darius who had unlocked the door panel. "Dare. Please, we know where to go now."

"I just want to check out this one area." Darius cocked his rifle. "Could be a storage area he uses. You never know."

"He's obviously up top somewhere, for Chrissake." Burke griped, Darius not answering as he tapped the door panel. The massive door rumbling open in four sections which retreated into the corners of the door socket.

Burke was quite correct in his assumption that it was the pump room. There were pipes that connected to individual tanks, snaking up the wall and on the ceiling and catwalks. None of the devices were working however. What was even more of an eye opener was the copious amount of bones and corpses of small local scavengers and other non-predatory wildlife native to Tuchanka. Standing over the corpses were dozens of pack hunting reptilian animals, standing on four stocky legs, torn meat from the dead animals being shred in razor teeth.

Each one of the varren darted their heads toward the two privateers, some with mouthfuls of meat, others had just been taking a siesta on the bone riddled floor and had just now stood up.

"GODDAMMIT DARIUS!" Burke shouted, backing up quickly and letting loose a crescendo of projectile rounds from his striker pistol into the nearest varren, until he fell over to his side. Darius was already sprinting toward the opposite direction, hybrid rifle swaying as varrens began to pursue them both on a whim.

As he ran down the hall Burke was breathing so hard that it felt like his respirator was going to pop off his face. Darius occasionally back stepped along the way, spraying automatic fire to slow down the wild varren that prowled after them.

Burke craned his weapon arm back behind him, not bothering to look as he blind-fired a few pistol rounds.

"Ah, fuck! BURKE WATCH WHERE YOU'RE FIRING! YOU ALMOST-"

"SHUT UP AND RUN!"

Neither of them tired from the minutes of excessive running, for their adrenaline was so high. Darius had switched his hybrid rifle to its shotgun mode when he was nearing the end of the trip, resulting in a successful kill of one of the quicker varren that had gotten in too close a proximity for the turian's overall comfort.

A warm pink light saturated the view ahead of them, causing Burke to actually go so far as to lick his lips in between breaths. Darius' heart rate quickened in excitement of an escape plan, his panic dissolving rind deep.

As they rounded around the bent corner, they could see shadows of floating objects crawling upon the pink lit walls, which eventually showed themselves in their entirety. Four were white metal objects, looking reminscent of a sphere if it were cut in half, and sawed in the center to where it curved inside in a concave manner. At the bottoms were fully automatic mass accelerator guns which hung below the center. The other variant, were two very small spherical objects made mostly of nanite tech and predominately enunciating its appearance and presence through an orange holographic interface.

These were security drones, the majority variant being Mark III Elanus Risk Control gun drones, and the minority being what seemed to be newer variants of the Quarian Armoury style attack drones.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck SHIT fuck!" Burke squealed, sliding to a stop and dropping on one knee. They were correct to assume that Reuben would deploy attack drones since he did not have a personal guard., unless of course these were the Nakmor Clan's synthetic assault bots, though it was common knowledge that krogan were not fond of sending machines to do their fighting for them.

The Elanus drone closest to Burke sank low, as if to identify its target. It hovered to the side and opened fire, the rest of the mark III drones joining it. Darius ducked under the fire, keeping his rifle fixated on the thickest column of security drones.

It became evident to both of them that Reuben's drones were not firing on them, but the stampede of varren that were catching up to them. Tiny bits of mass effect assisted metal rounds shot up the front column of the horde, or the ground around it, sending some of them wailing at the ceiling and tumbling down and over themselves.

Quickly realizing that it was evident that they were not ceasing their pursuit, Darius stood up and grasped Burke under the shoulders and flung him toward the elevator, smacking the control panel. The door rolled open, revealing the interior of the lift.

"Hurry! Get inside! Quick!" A voice in the elevator's intercom sounded. Both the privateers grasped themselves, trying to lug one another inside. As a result, both of them hit the floor, Darius quickly scooping himself up, catching the interior panel and hitting a random floor button.

The door had begun to close, both breathing a sigh of relief. Their sense of security was infringed once a varren stuck himself in the cusp of the door as it was closing, the automatic sensor causing the door to open once more. The varren roared and drooled upon Burke's feet.

Burke Craddock, still prone, withdrew the shotgun from his belt, uncollapsed it, and yanked the trigger after he took aim at the creature's open mouth. The bits of accelerated metal eviscerated one side of the beast's innards, the rest bursting out at his hip at the angle.

The varren were clearly more attracted to the scent of the mercenaries, even as they were being fired upon by the drones. Other varren tried to pour themselves in, Darius switching his hybrid rifle to automatic fire and spraying a lengthy session of pure tungsten chips at the mob of predators, screaming in frustration. Burke stood up, firing one shot off before approaching the back of the turian, stepping around him and hitting the button once again. Darius then kicked the corpse of the varren that had been shot through his right eye by the tactical hybrid rifle. Burke then kicked the corpse of the varren he elminated, both continuing fire to keep the varrens at bay. One of the holographic drones burst an arc of electrical energy, burning into the nerves of one of the wild beasts and stunning it. Another moved into a populated part of the crowd and self detonated, the concussion sending around four of them tumbling or flying, leaving off a trail of steam.

The door closed fully, Burke pressing his rump against the elevator wall and leaning over, grasping his knees. Darius was aware of some sort of mechanical stick that hung from the cusp of the ceiling just over the door, a cube like head attached to it and sporting a circular blue light. It seemed to follow the turian's movements.

_"Ha ha ha ha, shit. You guys almost got added to the chef's surprise today."_ The intercom laughed. _"You know, if the varren actually had a culinary expert. Er, nevermind. It's uh- oh my God, you fellas really don't know how freakin' glad I am to see you."_

The voice drifted off into wheezing laughter, almost sounding reminiscent of sobbing at times, mostly jocular. Darius and Burke both glared at the obvious camera above them. _"Ah, Jeez, I'm so glad you two aren't Bonnie Blues. Was worried that you were when my hidden surveillance spotted ya... but enough of that I'm rerouting the elevator to my floor unless you guys, er don't mind? Heh, heh, heh."_

"Why the hell should we trust you?" Darius growled, his mandibles tightening as he glared at the camera with contempt. "You do realize we're going to drag you down and bind you, and immediately take you to our ship."

"Relax Darius." Burke placed a hand on the turian's shoulder. "He practically saved us from being torn apart and devoured, okay, this is more than we expected from this guy in the first place."

"You're gonna let your guard down now?" Darius landed a gentle haymaker on Burke's arm, swiping it off. "I really don't make it part of my prerogative to trust arms dealers, even if they're selling me stuff."

"Well make it your prerogative to stop being such a hyper aggressive asshole and do a favor to me now that you nearly got us consumed by wild varren." Burke glared at him, and nodded. Darius did not answer, and instead glared at his compatriot.

Mitchell Reuben stood in the lobby of his operations floor, and opened a can of Tupari sports drink. The area was lined with protective windows which showed a good view of Tuchanka's positively bleak and battered landscape, and the interior was lined with tables stacked with gun cases, mods, unarmed bombs, munitions, armor, military clothing, ballistic omni tool mods, and other military hardware.

* * *

><p>Reuben adjusted his grey suit and scratched the beard he had been growing out due to his lack of interest of shaving. He was flanked by two Mark III combat drones which patrolled his peripherals.<p>

The door opened, revealing Burke and Darius, the latter having his hybrid rifle pointed at him. Both of them skittered out.

"Nice to see you guys in the flesh!" He scratched the ear length hair he had grown out.

"Get on the ground!" Darius screamed, his rifle trained on him.

"Hey! Is that an Armax Arsenal Mark II. Tactical Hybrid Rifle?" He placed his fist partially in his mouth and squealed. "My God, it's been so hard to get my hands on one of those things! Can I hold it?"

"No! Put your hands on your head and get on the ground!"

"How's the recoil on the shotgun mode? I keep hearing people say you can hold it against your nads and it barely-"

"I SAID GET YOUR FUCKING SCRAWNY ASS ON THE GROUND!" Darius was now nearly at arms length of Reuben, the three barrels of the hybrid rifle no more than a foot away from his face. "Deactivate those drones! NOW!"

"Err... I really don't want any trouble guys, after all, to you, you're my captors, but to me, you're my freakin' knights in shining armor, I kid you not." He giggled gleefully and smiled.

"Darius, relax." Burke calmly requested, placing a hand on the top of his associate's rifle. "Lower it."

Once again, the turian brushed the arm off and aimed at one of the drones, switching in between the twin targets on occasion. "He's got freaking security drones. There's no telling when he'll set them off."

"Alright, Dare. It's okay." Burke pat him on the shoulder and looked toward Mitchell and held out his hand. "Sir, please switch the drones off."

"Sure, sure. I should have turned em' off by now anyway." He nervously smirked, bringing up his omni tool and twirled a finger on the orange glowing interface. The drones sank to the ground slowly before hitting it and falling over.

"Thank you." Burke smiled. "Now tell us, why did you help us out down there?"

"Because now I actually have a chance of not getting annihilated by General Ukoirnas' thugs!" Mitchell laughed and clapped his hands together. "I received an anonymous tip that they're coming to kill me and seize control of my business. I'm gonna be tried by a Citadel tribunal and put in a turian Hierarchy prison! Yipee!" His joy and laughter was barely contained after that.

"This..." Darius shook his head and lowered his rifle. "...wasn't what I expected."

"Oh, oh, trust me." Reuben pointed two fingers at his own chest. "I'd rather be forced into penal sex slavery than go through the shit the Blue Suns do to you before eventually giving you the peace of death."

Burke was not entirely surprised at the man's declaration, considering the fact that he witnessed, and was often asked to take part in the brutalizing of captured high profile targets during the years he spent in the private military organization. "The Suns are sadistic animals, I agree."

"Oh! The ones under Ukoirnas' command are a hell of a lot worse! The most vicious of all the Suns!" Mitchell twirled his hair with his finger in the nervous thought of them catching up to them.

"You said you think Ukoirnas' men are after you because they want to seize your possessions?" Darius questioned, his black eyes scanning the various crates and trinkets on the folding tables.

"Well, I kinda stiffed them too..." Mitchell admitted, his head hanging low.

"You wha-" Burke blinked shaking his head.

"For good reason!" The arms dealer held his hands out. "I was curious so I read up about Ukoirnas, and the guy sounds nigh fucking psychotic. Even by Blue Suns standards! I mean, he laid waste to an entire turian colony!"

"Sargonis." Darius corrected.

"Yes!" Mitchell pointed to him. "That's the one! Killed nearly every man, woman and child. Civilians AND military. It may have not been a very large colony, but damn, that turian deserves ten times what the Suns are going to do to me if they find me..."

"How exactly did you rip him off?" Burke interrogated.

Mitchell put a finger up. "Well he actually invested in this business and asked for a rather large cut of all the profits I made. The investment wasn't even a large sum of credits, so he was practically nailing me to begin with, but I still stuck with it."

"Because you're such a nice guy." Darius mocked, once again eying the weapons.

"He also has been asking me for these rare Aldrin Labs mass accelerator micro howitzers, as they call them. REALLY powerful guns. I think he used a few to lay waste to the colony. Goddamn what have I done..." He sighed placing a hand on his forehead. "Once I did a more indepth background check for this loony and his army of equally loony, heh, loonies. I contacted all my shippers and promptly called them off, cancelling the order. Apparently they caught onto this and they're after me now. You guys gotta help me out!" He placed his hands together.

"Those... micro howitzers... do you have any of those here?" Burke asked, searching among the myriads of weaponry.

"Yeah, around seven." Mitchell beckoned and stepped toward a corner of the room. "They're over here."

Burke followed, Darius' S.P.E.A.R induced paranoia cautiously creeping him toward the location in case Reuben were to lead them into a trap. The weapons were large, well enough for the turian exosuits to carry, just a quarter or third of a meter shorter than their own height.

"It's all here. Everything but the kitchen sink... I do have one of those on the other side of the room but, eh, heh." He rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged and made strange motions with his hands. "Listen, I can tell you the planets my transporters stashed the weapons at, give you all the details on the secret codes and shit, even give you some of the weapons if you want me to, I mean, oh my God I'll do anything as long as those assholes don't catch up to me. They really could be here at any minute for all I know."

Burke and Darius stared at the weapons, the former placing a finger upon his ear. "Brook, we've nabbed the target. Tell 'em to send a hauler here... because they've got quite a load to confiscate..."


	18. Mighty Wings

**Chapter 17 – Mighty Wings**

Brooklyn tapped one of her feet upon the dirty concrete ground, standing outside the Panera, which was parked just outside of the facility. Eight large and intimidating krogan in black armor stood around her, whetting their rifles and pistols, loitering as she was. Their battlemaster kept one of his yellow reptilian eyes upon her, glaring in distrust. A massive Nakmor Tomkah fighting vehicle was parked near the exit of the battered road. She felt the cold blooded glare of the krogan to her side, but chose not to acknowledge it, as pushing any sort of argument with one of them would create one of the most stubborn verbal confrontations that would make the ones she has with Burke seem amoebic by comparison.

The main door opened, the aged dynamos creaking and whirring, unsheathing a trio of silhouettes that stood behind it. Reuben was the first to step out, carrying two briefcases, the three barrels of Darius' rifle poking to his back, lined up with his solar plexus. Burke filed out from behind the other two, carrying another briefcase in his left hand. All of them felt the gusty, dry and sniveling wind throttle them, the hairs on their heads flapping about and the wind affecting the balance of the cases they carried.

"Hey, hey! Good afternoon my krogan friends!" Reuben bowed a head and placed the toe of his left shoe on the ground behind him, greeting the Nakmor soldiers who responded with injurious glares.

The battlemaster stepped forth. "My name is Nakmor Hurgan, battlemaster of my clan. You have been desecrating our territory from the beginning, human. If the council didn't have such an interest in you we'd gun you down right here where you stand."

Another krogan, this one with a faceplate and helmet drew a pistol and stepped forth. "We should, right now. The hell with the council's wish!" Reuben shielded his face by lifting up a briefcase, Burke and Darius pointing their weapons at him and stepping in front of him.

"Thrax!" Hurgan called. "Stand down, immediately!"

The impulsive krogan continued to point a pistol toward the arms dealer, Darius tilting his head forward and glaring at him through his brow, his mandibles tight and immovable as the tactical rifle was held motionless in his hands.

"Very well battlemaster..." Thrax finally responded, holstering his pistol and falling back into formation. Burke could not help but feel that the krogan staged that insubordinate stunt just to get it out of his system, or possibly savor the fear in the eyes of the arms dealer. Most likely a fruitless action, considering the fact that he was holding the metal briefcase and obstructing his view.

"Well battlemaster, he'll be out of your way for the time being." Brooklyn spoke, all three of them heading toward the back of the Panera to load the cargo.

"Excellent, we would like to personally thank you for your assistance." Hurgan held out a hand toward Burke as he passed by.

"No problem, battlemaster Hurgan. Good luck down here." Burke replied, holstering his pistol and grasping the massive hand of the krogan. They shook, and the krogan did not firm his hand one bit, possibly due to thinking that the human would squeal from the strength.

"As much luck as we can muster, human." Hurgan nodded, motioning toward the Nakmor warriors under his command. "Alright, let's get inside and confiscate the goods. It's probably going to take a few trips so carry as much as possible."

The three privateers all turned their heads back, stopping in their tracks. "I'm sorry?" Burke stammered.

"Thrax, get on the radio." Hurgan continued, ignoring Burke's informal and nonspecific query. "Tell them we may need a shuttle to ferry the goods."

"Nakmor Hurgan! Excuse me..." Brooklyn waved them down and stepped toward them, the krogan craning his bulky and rigid head to face her. "A salarian hauler is going to come pick the weapons up, so you really don't need to bear the burden of having them." Seltzer's law degree prowled up in her speech once again, hoping her request would turn out as little riveted as possible.

Hurgan turned his entire body to face her. "This was NOT part of the deal, human." He growled, pointing his assault rifle at her face. "If you're restating your terms, I highly suggest choosing them with exceptional care. Otherwise you can get the hell off our planet, and out of Nakmor territory."

Brooklyn's hand grasped her barracuda machine pistol and pointed it outward, taking a few steps back. Burke and Darius were scrambling behind her, finding appropriate firing positions if they were to be attacked. The rest of the Nakmors reassembled and trained their weapons on the formation of privateers. Mitchell Reuben, however merely just stood where he was and resisted the temptation to drench his fine trousers.

Darius had the sights of his rifle fixated on the thickest formation of lesser krogan. Burke and Brooklyn pointed their weapons at the face of their battlemaster. Brooklyn had to speak a few words to essentially scrap themselves into a Mexican standoff.

"For crying out loud, Hurgan. You're cooperative with council regulations one moment, and you can't stand the idea of it once we bring up something new!" Brooklyn grimaced, the sights of the machine pistol pointing in between his eyes.

"Brook... did you not bring that last term up earlier?" Burke asked, his shotgun arms trembling. "That would helped us if you had just said it sooner."

"No she did not! You council cronies don't give a damn about our plight." Hurgan's focus was unwavering as he kept the rifle fixed on Brooklyn. "Some of those weapons up there belonged to the Nakmor, notably a myriad of shotguns, heat sinks, and rifle mods. They were stolen by the Weyrlocs, and sold to that twig necked asshole over there." His eyes beckoned toward Reuben who was still standing motionless, his fine shoes clacking together.

"Now uh... uh, ha, ha, hah. Wait just a second guys." He stammered smiling warmly. He took a few steps forward, his briefcases in hand, holding one up. "You can have all the weapons, it uh, it really doesn't matter! You can even have these! I was going to give them to these fol-"

Hurgan one handed his assault rifle, shifting its direction toward Reuben and immediately opening fire with a five round burst. The arms dealer plopped backward and rolled over one of his briefcases, before lying completely still on the nasty ground.

"You spotty lipped motherfucker!" Burke gasped with closed teeth.

"We should have done that to begin with. Goddamn human and turian scum manipulating us. We've cooperated with the council long enough." Hurgan beckoned toward his underlings. "Get inside and see what you all can find." He looked back to the others. "You all... get out... of... my... s-"

He stopped, the air roaring with a strange humming sound that slowly grew louder with each second. They all looked up, seeing a trio of aircraft descending down upon them.

A volley of mass accelerator and rockets soared toward their position, most of them impacting into the Tomkah and destroying it in a shower of flame and smoke. The krogan were throttled onto the ground, debris raining all over the general area and the privateers ducking. The krogan that were still on their feet shifted their sights and opened fire on the aircraft. All of them soared above at a close altitude as they drew their noses up and scattered. Two of them were gunships, and one was clearly a turian fighter. All of them had the insignia of the Blue Suns written on the fuselage.

"BROOKLYN! START UP THE PANERA!" Burke screamed, running toward the fallen arms dealer and grabbing him under the shoulders, trying to lift him up. The gunships swung by, one of them descending and parking behind a water tower, troops springing out of it.

"Gahh!" Mitchell gasped, freeing himself from his grasp. "Are... uh? Are we in hell yet?"

"Get those cases and get your ass inside! The Suns are here!" Burke smacked his shoulder, Mitchell screaming as a sniper rifle round flew by his head, the force of the wind opening a small part of the skin on his ear. Burke grasped him once again and thrust him on the ground, laying on top of him as he drew his striker pistol and fired it at the sniper, who was perched at the back of a gunship.

The batarian sniper ignored most of the fire, but one bounced off his right shoulder plate, disorienting his aim, and more fire, these from assault weapons began riddling everything around him, the paint being torn off, and the fuel line being punctured.

The Nakmor warriors as well as Darius continued their barrage on the single gunship, one shot catching the batarian's midriff, and another blasting a spark beside the leaking fuel line. The back of the dropship was alight with flames, the sniper leaping out and screaming toward his doom. The aircraft began to spin out of control before it hit a raised wall, smashing and bursting in a blossom of fire and shrapnel.

Burke and Reuben hastily grabbed the briefcases, both noticing the holes in the case from the shots it absorbed from Hurgan's rifle. They all filed in, hearing the Panera's engines whine. The two humans were in first, ducking under fire as Burke shielded Reuben in case he were to be targeted by Ukoirnas' infantry. As they were in, Darius backed in, his hybrid rifle chattering as he switched between targets. One of the Suns fell, wounded in the leg. He raced inside as the ramp began to ascend, as well as the corvette itself.

Two of Hurgan's forces had been laid to rest by the Blue Suns, but the survivors were still relentless in their goal to suppress or eliminate their foes altogether. The Blue Suns had entrenched themselves behind low piles of junk, firing back at their assailants.

Inside the converted hierarchy fighter, a turian sat, his white pilot's helmet on, as well as his flight suit. The violet glow of the controls illuminated his faceplate as well as his flight suit.

"Commander... this is Myaix!" He called out over the open channel, following the Panera on its tail as it began to ascend higher. "Target is getting away! I say again: target has lifted off! Permission to engage!"

The human female commander was ducking behind an ajar wall panel. "Don't let him get off the planet! Take him out!"

Brooklyn sat in the cockpit, the rest of the strapped in the passenger seats as they lifted off. "Ascension grid locked and confirmed! Hang on people." She reached for the throttle, stopping as the warning light blared on the console, the screen turning slightly reddish as well as the usual chirping.

"We're being targeted!" Brooklyn tilted the craft's nose downward and yanked the throttle, the Panera speeding off in a frontal straight fashion, then darting in non rhythmic zig zag. If there was anything she remembered in flight school, it was to not fly in a straight line more than thirty seconds in a combat zone.

"Well you can't say this couldn't happen! They do have a fighter after all!" Burke yelled. Darius had his eyes on Brooklyn's sensor scopes, keeping an eye on the path of the fighter to their rear, while Mitchell just nervously shifted in his seat and looked to the others, a flustered look on his face.

"Damn this wind is insane... Burke, I'm giving you the gunnery controls." She fluttered her fingers above the interface, another holographic console materializing before the passenger.

Within the Blue Suns fighter, Lieutenant Myaix fired a twin set of missiles that screamed out of their launchers and hissed toward the target after it finally locked.

The warning lights began flashing incessantly, followed by a low pitched, but jarring whining sound. "Ah, Christ. HANG ON!" Brooklyn strangled the controls, jerking it to the right. At that very moment, her free hand tapped the countermeasure button. Flares spat out of the back of the Panera, dropping downward and the missiles switching direction and fiending after the heat they let off, like a duo of hungry varren.

Myaix's mandibles dropped beneath his helmet as he watched the missiles explode after coming in close proximity of the flares. He snapped the throttle back, the after burners hissing on the rear of the fighter, hoping to reduce his distance between the Panera and himself.

The two craft danced around high in the sky, Myaix staying as close as possible to his target. Once in distance, he lined up his main sights on the old salarian corvette, his thumb pressing the firing hammer down, the machinegun firing away, one thousand rounds per minute.

"Ah, fuck!" Brook cursed, reverting the auxiliary power to the kinetic barriers. The machinegun rounds smacked into the barrier as Myaix kept his thumb on the trigger, and his sights as accurate as possible. The barriers were eventually reduced to sixty-five percent strength after a beating.

"I'm not sure if we can shake this guy like this!" Darius yelled. "Burke you gotta throw something at him! Anything to take him out or slow him down!"

"Use the rear targeting!" Brooklyn shouted, swerving around from another volley. Burke lined up the rear sights on his monitor, catching the turian fighter as it tried to chip away at the shields once more.

Myaix fired once again, the gun overheating. He cursed silently and waited it out, the guns cooling as he considered distancing himself enough to fire another missile. His interface began to chirp and whine once again as he was being locked. He checked his scopes to see if they had backup, and after finding nothing he fixated his eyes on the tail of the craft once again. He cursed under his breath. That corvette may have been an old model, but he wrongly underestimated salarian engineering, no matter how ancient it may have been.

The Panera fired a missile out of its front, which arched upward slowly, regaining speed as it hissed and performed a vertical u-turn and bore down on the turian fighter. Myaix yelled a few profanities in his own turian language as neared his craft, then he darted out of the way, flipping his craft on its back as he descended out of the way of the missile. Both eventually hit the ground, a distant puff of sand and dirt evident upon the far surface.

"I hope that'll slow his ass down." Burke sighed in possibly temporary relief as the Panera resumed a straight course. Directly ahead of both of them was a ruined city, situated between a series of mountains, around three of the buildings towering over the rest of them, even though the tallest was reduced mostly to re-bar after the nuclear conflict. Brooklyn seemed to be heading straight for it, notching the craft's speed from full to flank.

"Wait... uh..." Reuben began to interject. "Parkuli."

Darius turned his head toward him. "What the hell did you just say?"

"Parkuli. The city ahead of us. Ma'am, I suggest you stay away from that city, considering a fighter is trying to blow us out of the sky and we could beach it and be stranded there." He grinned, though it was conspicuously strained and false.

"Why the hell shouldn't I fly over it?" Brooklyn spoke, checking the scope to see that the fighter was just beginning to regain its altitude and continue the pursuit.

"Because the entire city is a freaking plague zone." Mitchell confirmed. "Nobody squats on this stretch of the planet because breathing the air here is sure to get tiny mushrooms or gooey moss growing on the inside of your lungs."

"Yeah, Brook." Burke frowned. "This doesn't sound like a good place to be shot down."

"You're all a bunch of pessimists." Brooklyn stated, a smile slightly curling into one side of her cheek. "Stop worrying, I have an idea."

"Heh, heh, heh. Well in the meantime, I'll be praying for a quick and painless obliteration of this ship when that sucker starts shooting at us again." Reuben clapped his hands and rubbed them together, a hoarse laughing which slowly turned into a faint sobbing. Darius reached over and placed a hand upon the arms dealer's shoulder, looking away and shaking his head.

As soon as Myaix spotted the Panera once again, he strained the afterburners so much that he thought the fuel cells would burst from overload. He was obsessed with keeping the fighter in his range.

"_Commander Ryo to lieutenant Myaix! Have you eliminated the target yet?"_ The open channel sounded. Myaix refused to answer.

"_Ryo to Myaix, we have one dead and two wounded down here and we need- SHIT! LOOK OUT! THE KROGAN ARE CHARGING, FALL BACK TO THE DROPSHIP! NORVAN, ON YOUR LEF-"_

Myaix switched off the channel, continuing his course. The Panera was moving slower than usual, though he did not know why. Every fiber of his being was yearning to eradicate that ship out of the sky, it did not matter how much they paid him. Being a fighter pilot was about savoring the adrenaline of chasing down the enemy and rubbing him or her out.

The Panera screamed past an old condo, one side of it blackened and blown to crisp from the nuclear strike on the city. Myaix's fighter wailed after it, close behind as he lined up his targeting reticule on the rear of it, beginning to lock onto him.

A single missile was fired the very first few milliseconds it locked, and it closed in, the Panera immediately speeding up, firing off a volley of countermeasures, and slowing down once the missile was no longer homed on them. The trajectile hissed toward the tallest building, flowing right through the flares and smacking into a piece of rebar and clinging metal and concrete.

The Panera faked right, then thrust itself toward the burnt out, skeletal building, heading in its general direction. "Oh, no you don't!" Myaix screamed, following it directly. "I got you now you son of a bitch, don't you even think that'll stop me."

The Panera hissed through a widened spot of the skeletal structure, just below where the missile hit. The particular section of the rebar creaked, beginning to give way. The Blue Suns fighter head into a straight line, Myaix switching to guns as he snaked through the first stretch of structure.

His proximity warning light flashed, beeping incessantly. He ignored it, and was about to continue on. There was a sudden smash that rattled the fighter inside and out, the ship spinning and crashing into the sides and corners like a pinball. "Ah, shit! Shit!" Myaix screamed, trying to get a grip on the controls once more as he was thrown around inside the cockpit, the safety straps wrestling to keep him still.

The fighter continued to plummet, and was falling tail first, the engines stalling completely. The fighter smashed through a panel of flooring and light beams, shaking the pilot even harder inside his own cockpit. A notice on his display marked that one of his three engines was smashed and ruptured just then.

The fighter tilted to the side, the engines sputtering back to life as they continued to fall through the ceilings and floors of the destroyed tower. He slammed on the throttle and freed himself from the maw of the tower through a relatively open point.

After rocking side to side, the fighter straightened its course, Myaix panting. He soared in an arch toward the opposite direction, keeping an eye on his sensor. "Where are you? Show yourself you tricky bastard!"

The Panera tore out from behind a lower building, gaining speed as Burke lined down the sights and fired a few shots from the LAMAC gun once the fighter was centered on his crosshairs. Two missed, but one smashed through the bottom of the craft, rupturing the control lines and scattering some shrapnel into the cockpit. Myaix's right leg was shredded to the bone, spraying blood into the floor of the compartment and through the crater. Another fragment punched through his glass faceplate and tore one of his eyes out, and he screamed and wrestled with the controls, trying to get it level again.

Over his own ringing ears, as well as his own screaming, he did not hear the locked target whine as the Panera locked on the battered fighter, no see the warning since one of his eyes was gouged out, and his faceplate heavily cracked and covered with blood.

From a distance, Commander Ryo stepped into the cockpit of the gunship as it broke away from Nakmor clan gunfire. The wounded had been left in the back after their daring escape, forcing her to leave two of her men behind from the charging krogan.

She saw as a missile trail led to a poof of fire and smoke in the distance as they ascended. Perhaps, Myaix had taken down his target, spotting another fighter speed off on the horizon.

"Move over, Conner." She spoke to the gunship pilot, just before taking control of the communications. "Ryo to Myaix, has the target been eliminated?"

She saw as the tiny dot ascended toward the sky. Myaix never responded.


	19. A Farewell to Arms

**Chapter 18 – A Farewell to Arms**

The Panera propelled itself from Tuchanka's atmosphere like a fruit-bat out the bowels of hell, the engines wailing as it ascended into the aether nothingness of space. Brooklyn batted her eyes as the scopes on the sensor heads up display quavered and adjusted, waiting to set a direct course for the relay.

Once the monitors finally calibrated, it was clear that a turian frigate was shifting course off the starboard side, formerly in orbit. The identification codes identified it as a Blue Suns ship, the Phasewalker.

"That's exactly what I was afraid of!" Darius commented, not bothering to assume the others had anticipated the same. "We're proper screwed right now, I hope everyone here has their wills filled out."

"What? You think gunships and short ranged fighters wouldn't travel on their own?" Brooklyn snidely questioned, not bothering to adjust the speed. "All of you better be crossing your fingers, like, right now."

"Oh, I've been doing that this whole time." Mitchell nervously chuckled, both hands in his lap, his middle fingers clearly wrapping over his indexes. Though reluctant to fad with their prisoner, Burke and Darius eventually gave in and did the same.

On board the Phasewalker, the turian commander scrambled from the cockpit, brushing past oaths of ensigns and crewmen to arrive to the command pedestal in the rear of the CIC. "Commander Pollius!" His executive officer spoke, cutting him off briefly near the navigator's section of the bridge.

"Any sign of Myaix or Ryo?" Pollius responded.

The human commander shook his head and responded rather bluntly. "Ryo is hauling, but we've confirmed that Myaix is toast."

The commander wordlessly brushed past him, the first mate giving a salute before making his way toward his post. He stepped up to the podium in the back, stepping up. "Mr. Hirsch. Get the GARDIAN lasers online pronto and ask the helmsman to get one of our broadsides in range. We have to end this as soon as pos-"

The system map flashed as two ships entered the system, raising a few brows, fluttering a few mandibles, and finally raising a few hairs on the backs of their necks. Two salarian ships, a frigate and a cargo hauler entered from the mass relay. Within the CIC, no one spoke a word, even the helmsman not bothering to disclose his opinions.

"I thought there weren't any scheduled Citadel vessels coming in." The executive officer muttered. "This is supposed to be a demilitarized zone!"

"Helmsman, get us through the relay." Bullious commanded.

"But sir, we have to-"

"We cannot afford to face a mercenary corvette and a salarian frigate in unison. Set a course for the Omega nebula, NOW!"

Sweat ran down the foreheads and jugulars of the Panera's human crew in addition of their new passenger, the moist perspiration reflecting the orange glow of the heads up display. Darius merely rubbed two fingers together and shifted the direction of his eyes. Brooklyn breathed a sigh of relief once the enemy frigate exited through the relay, the others in the cabin respiring in nigh perfect unison.

* * *

><p>"Jesus!" Mitchell exclaimed, his arms outstreched.<p>

An hour and a half later, the Panera had safely returned to the Serpent Nebula. Tangibly, that was not enough time for Mitchell Reuben to stop idolizing the alleged finesse and smoothness of the operation the privateers had executed.

"Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Buddha, Mohammad, Zeus, Jupiter, Hercules, and every single saint, messiah, prophet, apostle, and pink unicorn ever conceived!" He chuckled in ecstasy, Brooklyn and Darius still chewing their rations and not making eye contact with the prisoner. "Did I say Jesus?" He pointed toward the turian, grinning, once again receiving no response.

"That was poetry. Sir Walter Raleigh level stuff there." He leaned over to Brooklyn. "Where'd you learn to fly, Miss Seltzer? You annihilated that bonnie blue fly-boy varsity style!"

"Just button your lips and eat, you arms dealing ass." Darius had a mouthful of turian vine starch in his mouth before swallowing it. He pointed to the bowl of chowder in front of him as well as the cup of cherry fruit juice.

"I learned to fly at Creswell Naval Academy." Brooklyn admitted.

"You're Alliance?" He chuckled. "Or... uh former alliance?"

"Served a year in naval intel." She turned to face him and sipped her raspberry fruit drink.

"Ah! Top secret stuff!" He threw his hands up. "So what made you leave? Pay not good enough?"

"Dishonorable discharge."

"Oh. Not pushing it any further, then." He relaxed his legs, one of which was cuffed to the table and began eating the meal in front of him. "I gotta know how you guys do it. What about you... what was your name... Darius! What were you in?"

Darius sighed. He might as well tell him. "I was in the Myrmidons, S.P.E.A.R. Division. Was the communications expert my first two years and moved up to pointman the rest of my career."

Mitchell placed a fist in his mouth and chuckled. "Seriously?" He put his hands on the table. "Well fuck me in the ass with a model dreadnaught."

Burke exited the toilet, opening the door and stumbling in. "You guys are the cream of the crop aren't you?" He asked Burke as he turned to face him.

"And every other bit of the crop I guess." Burke slurred, stumbling toward the center and tripping over one of Reuben's briefcases, falling to his side. Burke began laughing hysterically afterward, Reuben staring for a few minutes in confusion before beginning to laugh as well. He looked at the other privateers who were positively embarrassed and ashamed.

The hairy privateer stood back up sinking to the edge of the table and barely sitting up, eating his bowl of vegetable soup. The arms dealer beside him got a good look at his nose, seeing flakes of red.

"Wait... are you-" Mitchell spoke. Burke looked him in the eye, the former looking at the dilation of his pupil. "Oh! You're a redhead." His voice dropped in tone with every word said. "Hey! I'm no drug peddler but I know some volus guys that can hook you up with some of the finest stuff!"

"Don't fucking encourage him." Darius sighed, resting his face in his hands.

"Not needed." Burke replied. "I already like the asari stuff I get."

"Swank? Prince? Cadaver? Aurophaltizine? Gray-Gel? Are you a biotic? I can get you some government issue apoplexy! Works great enhancing offensive powers like singularities!"

"Mitch." Brooklyn groaned.

"What about opium? Quadripartition? I can get you some quadripartition!"

He was viciously backhanded by Brooklyn's gloved hand, and immediately took the hint afterward. "Right. Sorry. The salesman within got the better of me." He removed his hand from his marginally bloodied lip and continued eating.

"So... were you in the Alliance Mr. Craddock?"

"I was born among human exiles that didn't conform to Alliance government." Burke responded, the side effect eliminating supplement taking effect and improving his judgment. "Had a mother and father who hated the Alliance and just about everything it stood for."

"Oh?" Reuben took another bite of his chowder. "Yeah, the Alliance was really screwy back in the 2150's. Not all that good today, either to be honest." He took a gulp of his beverage. "So what about your military training?"

"I didn't want to tell you at the time, but I learned the art of combat in a Blue Suns training camp on a desert planet called Kiylee." Burke took a spoonful of soup in his bowl, which tasted peculiar due to his red sand high. "Spent a good number of years running with the blue bonnies as well."

Reuben sat a good couple of seconds leering at Burke as he continued to chow down, the gun runner's mouth gaping more open with every second. "You? Blue Suns? No, no, no, come on!"

"It's the truth. Needless to say, I'm glad that I don't gel with those fucking barbarians anymore." Burke stood up and moved his half empty bowl forward in the cramped space they had. "So, show me what you've got in these cases."

"Well, one of them is my personal accessories like sticks of gum and two other suits, one I hope to wear to the trial. Heh." He saw Burke pick up the other case, beginning to unlatch it and open it. "The one you're holding right now is sort of a going away thank-you gift I put together at the last second."

Burke sat and opened it, looking into its contents. There were three packs of fine cigarettes, as well as a bottle of cognac. The rest weapons mods and accessories. Scopes, thermal clips, exotic ammunition slabs, as well as eight small strange looking black sticks no more than a couple of inches in length that looked to be tiny machine or gun parts of some sort, though Burke was unsure what they went with.

"Oh, those are a brand new type of assassin's weapon!" Mitchell exclaimed. "They're basically tiny guns. Deadly, though. It's got micro mass effect technology, kinda expensive, too but I sorta got them for free. Long story."

"Show me how they work." Burke requested handed him one of them.

"Burke..." Darius stood up a few inches, unholstering his Brawler Mark VII. "Could be making a big mistake here."

"Darius, when the heck are you going to take it easy around this guy?" Burke scoffed and shook his head.

"Hopefully not before he murders all three of us and he takes control of the ship, flying back to some shithole and selling our bodies for medical experiments." He pointed the pistol at the arms dealer, who broke a sweat.

Burke placed his chin on his fist. "Show us how to use it, without... you know."

"Yeah I know, don't worry." He chuckled nervously, holding it in one hand. "This thing's called a Cricket. It's highly illegal in hundreds of systems and manufactured by the Salarian mob. It holds a small charge pellet which can penetrate light and medium armor at close range. You turn the front end counter clockwise, which sort of acts as a safety. Then this back button here is the firing switch. Simple." He smiled, handing it back to Burke, who merely sat with a frown.

"That's great." Craddock responded, a hint of belligerence in his voice. "Now... demonstrate it."

"On what?" Mitchell timidly responded.

"I think you know what." Burke replied, still making menacing eye contact. "Shoot yourself with it."

Mitchell gulped, looking around and seeing the others were holding vindictive glares at the arms dealer. "Wha- what?" Mitchell asked softly.

"You can just put a hole in your hand or foot if you want to... all you gotta do is shoot yourself with it." Burke leaned closer to him. "Do it."

Mitchell looked at Darius, who clicked the safety of his pistol off with his free hand, his mandibles twitching ever so slightly.

There was about a minute of staring, Mitchell's collar drenched in sweat. After that time, Burke could no longer contain himself, even though he was planning to take the joke further. He burst into laughter and grasped the cricket device from him, placing it back into the case. The entire table erupted in a symphony of laughter from the three privateers, Brooklyn holding her sides and Darius' head on the table as they wheezed and convulsed. Mitchell eventually took a sigh of relief and joined it.

"Come on Mitch! I wouldn't do that to ya!" Burke howled.

The ship's low risk alarm chirped and they all stood up. "Alright, alright. We're close to the cruiser." Brooklyn wiped a tear from her eye and caught her breath.

"Finish your soup, cricket boy. You're about to get picked up." Darius stood up and followed his cohorts to the cockpit.

Mitchell sighed after his bout of cackling and shook his head. "Goddamn pirates."

* * *

><p>The Panera had docked on the side of the asari light cruiser, the Digattori. After the short decontamination process, they all walked in, Reuben still cuffed as his three captors walked him into the starboard observation bay. Four asari naval officers were there to greet them.<p>

Brooklyn saluted formally as she stepped in front of the others. "Captain Seltzer of the I.F.V Panera requesting permission to come aboard and transfer prisoner."

"Permission granted, captain." The asari naval officer replied, dressed in her red military dress and cap. Two asari military policewomen in black medium weight armor strolled in and lead the arms dealer to the brig. Burke handed his personal briefcase to one of the MP's.

One of the naval policewomen spoke up. "Mitchell Reuben, the Asari Repblics naval enforcement is placing you under arrest for arms-trafficking, illegal possession of Citadel regulated machinery, conspiracy to traffic-"

Mitchell was not even listening, he instead just looked back and grinned, waving a hand which was cuffed behind his back. The others waved, Burke blowing a kiss to Mitchell before he disappeared behind a door.

The asari captain cleared her throat, the others turning their heads toward her. "Here's the advance fund for handing him in." The captain brought up her omni tool and twisted the holographic interface a bit before bringing it down. "My cruiser will travel to Bixtin station where we will pick up new recruits and drop Mitchell off for military justice... do you all wish to stay for the twenty hours it takes to get there?"

They looked at one another momentarily, all nodding. The station was not entirely far away from one of the destinations the circuit box outlined. "It would be our pleasure to stay, captain, if it would not be too much of a hassle."

"We have full vacancies in the guest's quarters. Welcome aboard." She nodded. "If you need me, I will be at the bridge most of the time. Carry on."

All of them saluted each other as she and her entourage head back to the combat information center of the cruiser. They all looked around. "Well, we could use this." Brooklyn smiled. "Elbow room, a great view of outer space."

"Asari quality food." Burke licked his lips.

"Horny asari military maidens..." Darius' mandibles fluttered in anticipation.

Brooklyn shook her head and left them in their eagerness of satisfying philistine appetites, heading toward the observation deck. "Fuck 'em."


	20. Headhunter

**Chapter 19 – Headhunter**

_October, 2174_

_Three Years Earlier_

"Gather around!" The turian centurion roared, clapping his gloved hands together to get a few decibels above the chatter inside the Blue Suns cruiser's hangar. "Come on shitheads, this is a briefing, not a circlejerk! You'll have plenty of time for that once you get back!"

Seventeen of the blue clad mercenaries, human, turian, and batarian clustered between two large gunships. The centurion reached a hand and clasped it on the shoulder of an armored man. "Vido Santiago himself is asking to get a full report of this mission, so there's a zero tolerance for fucking this up." The officer of the Suns announced as he looked each of his underlings in the eye, then toward the man he gripped. "Burke Craddock here'll be your new company staff sergeant. Give him a hand."

All of them cheered and applauded, which was more reminiscent of cat calls, while Burke blushed under his beard. "Yeah, thanks a million." He shrugged off the hand of his superior and placed a silver convex disc on the ground and took a few paces back. He brought up his omni tool and tinkered with it, bringing up a sizable holographic diagram of the planet their cruiser orbited. The image intensified, maximizing toward a single section of the planet. It showed outlines of structures, as well as two dots which sigified drop points.

"Okay listen up. We got a contract to assault an alliance survey outpost." Burke began, the other Suns muttering softly and looking at each other in concern. "Yes you heard me right, now listen up! Gunship Bravo will soften up the defenses while Alfa Gunship drops my team in between the garrison and the command center. Gunship Charlie will drop off Crothius and his team and secure the garrison. Meanwhile once the defenses are down and the area is clear, Bravo gunship will touch down and drop off Owen's team who'll link up with my team and help me breach the command center."

"You never had any trouble breaching MY command center, Burke." Was Owens' inflammatory suggestion, puckering her lips as the other Suns laughed. "Why the sudden need of assistance?"

"Fuck you Owens."

"You already did."

"Anyway, MOVING on." Burke smirked and shook his head. "We need to spare as many enlisted and civilian personal as possible. Naval officers are to be eliminated on sight."

"Why do that?" A turian female corporal asked.

"Because this is a slave roundup, not a ransom mission." He brought the image down and shut off his omni tool, placing his hands on his hips. "Batarian slavers often say that military officers are a bitch and a half when taken as slaves. The higher the rank, the better they are at manipulating the other thralls and causing a stir. Any other questions?"

A human private raised his hand. "Why can't we just round up the officers and do fun shit with them, like push them out of the gunships at high altitudes?"

"Or tie them up and strap explosives to them?" A batarian private chuckled.

"Because I prefer we do this the practical way. In and out before any reinforcements arrive." Burke nodded to him, raising his eyebrows.

"In and out. Right." Owens chuckled.

"Eat a bag of shit, Owens." Burke looked toward the others, certain that no more questions were to be asked. "Alright, I want everyone armed up and ready to kick ass in ten minutes! Let's go! Move! Squad leaders and pilots stay here!"

The underlings filed out and sprinted toward the armory while the rest drew closer, checking their weapons and going over their plans over the omni tools.

"Excuse me sergeant." A woman with a bandana upon her head as well as a targeting monocle around her eye came closer to him. Her obviously natural black hair partially dyed blond, wearing Blue Suns Mark II armor except on her arms.

"Who the hell are you?" Burke asked, attempting to light a cigarette.

The woman brought up an omni tool, the flame reaching the tip of the cancer stick. "Flight Officer Carrie Hamil. I'm your new chauffeur."

"Thanks for the light..." He exhaled some smoke out his nosrils and placed the cigarette in between two fingers. "...but you should have talked to me during the proper 'Q' and 'A' time, Carrie."

"I wanted to ask you if the rumors were true." She spoke.

"We're about to make a combat drop and you want to ask me about fucking gossip?" Burke snarled.

"It's about you and Alliance officers." She corrected.

Burke remained silent, his mouth becoming crooked, his eyes no longer making contact with hers.

"Blackhat slayer. Alliance headhunter, they call you. They say you killed five Alliance officers. Is it true?" The pilot continued.

"That's right." Burke nodded, placing the cigarette back in his mouth and his hands on his hips. "Three lieutenants, one frigate commander, and a sixty year old, curmudgeonly marine major a week out of retirement."

"That's impressive." Carrie grinned, obviously forced. "You must really hate the Alliance. Why is that?"

Burke smirked and nodded, his cigarette tilting upwards. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and waved behind her. "Owens get over here and meet the new chauffeur."

Owens, a six foot tall woman with scars on her forehead and nose from bayonet fights walked over to them. "Hey darling." She greeted.

The pilot lifted a hand, but the squad leader refused to shake it.

"Punch me." Owens spoke, tapping her face with a finger.

"What?" The chauffeur questioned.

"Punch me in the face. Come on. Hard as you can."

Carrie sheepishly clenched her fist. Drawing her arm back and striking the woman square in the jaw, who did little more than jerk her head to the side.

"Again." She spoke, as if not feeling any pain.

The jockey hit her again, this time in the cheek. "Harder. Come on."

Again.

"Harder!"

Again. Still no apparent damage.

"Harder!"

She struck her in the temple, her knuckles beginning to smart and her wrist bone feeling frail.

"Do it!" Owens said a final time, one side of her face red and beginning to swell.

The pilot brought her other hand into a fist, putting all her weight to ram it into her nose. Owens sidestepped, grasping the forearm of the striking appendage and sweeping the chauffeur's legs out from under her with a swinging kick.

Carrie attempted to climb on her feet once again, but the sole of a boot was firmly fastened upon her neck, prevented her from carrying the option out. Burke stepped over to her as Owen had her pinned to the ground, taking the cigarette out and sinking down to her level, crossing his arms over his knees.

"Yes, I hate the jackbooted Alliance fascists." He blew a cloud of tobacco vapor into her face, already wheezing as she struggled to upheave the armored boot to her throat. "You should too. Got a father out of Alliance territory? A mother? Sibling? Cousins? A boyfriend? A cat? They're going to get wasted by those blackhats if they even so much as thing they're anti-Alliance propagating despots. That's how my dad died. See where I'm coming from."

He looked back up and waved a hand around his neck, the boot now off Carrie's throat, immediately gasping for air. Burke stood up, extending a hand. After a few more gasps, she grabbed his hand, and he lifted her up.

"If you're going to ask me something like that, I suggest doing it when I've had a few screwdrivers at the canteen." Burke pat her on the shoulder.

"Sorry, sergeant." She gasped.

"It's okay. You're new. Get your dropship ready." He walked past her, walking to talk to another one of the squad leaders, Owens following him.

Brooklyn Seltzer stood, grimacing at the alias she could never seem to get used to, her bruised gullet, and the unmannerly mission she was forced to undertake. If assisting bloodthirsty mercenaries on a crusade to kill her fellow Alliance personnel was encouraged to keep her cover, it would have to be done.


	21. Wretched Hive

**Chapter 20 – Wretched Hive**

_February, 2177_

_Present Day_

Their stay on the asari cruiser had proved to be a gratified experience, though it was still after all, a military vessel. The mess hall was only open for every meal at a time, leaving only vending machines with sub par snacks and drinks. The canteen was closed entirely during their stay for reasons that were left under tight and uncooperative lips.

Burke tossed the empty moldfoam coffee cup in a nearby wastebasket as he continued to strut the length of the officer's quarters. "Darius, if only you were easier to find." He stared into his omni-tool, gazing at the tracking signal of his crewmate. He wounded around a crescent shaped utility drone that floated down the corridor, eventually gazing at one of the doors of the quarters before it opened.

Out walked an asari ensign, buttoning her uniform and nodding toward Burke before embarking on a long return to her post. Darius stepped out from behind her, grasping his duffel bag and staring at Burke.

"An officer, eh?" Burke snorted, switching his omni tool off. "With the privacy of her private quarters. Makes perfect sense."

"It was blind luck, I admit it." Darius shrugged, closing the door and following Burke down the hall.

Burke continued. "Anyway, the asari managed to spare a few of their ship's power cells, so our fresh ones should be better than those Elanus Risk Control ones."

"I still think we should bought some elcor dung and stuffed it into the power slots. Would have been better than the ERC's." Darius nudged his human associate.

"Yeah, we may be highly paid, but we're still on a budget. Mostly using our credits for weaponry, equipment and filthy habits." Burke rounded around the corner to the docking port where the Panera was parked, slapping his hand across the dial for the decontamination chamber.

"Hey, I managed to score with somebody who wasn't a doxy for the first time in three years, this is a good day for me." He dropped the duffel bag onto the ground and stood straight as the decontamination beams began to canvas the interior in addition to the bright blue light they emitted. "I don't think you can do that with those narcotics you're using."

"Maybe I can take up coffee or tupari instead." Burke smiled.

The process had finished, the Panera's door opening. Darius hoisted the duffel bag by the straps again. "Won't be easy weaning you off of it."

"Won't be easy to wean you off of your pessimism either." Burke stepped in front of him, not making eye contact. "Or whores for that matter."

* * *

><p>Several hours later the Panera had exited FTL travel once it dropped anchor into the Hullick system within the Hawking Eta cluster. Brooklyn made a beeline toward the cockpit as she stood up from the meal table, checking the navigation computer as her toes met the crease of the foot length.<p>

A wire frame rectangle was plastered on the holographic mesh that hugged the forward viewport. Burke, dressed in his light Mantis armor which concealed the two freshly torn holes in his arm stepped up and read the subtitle aloud. "Sundermount Station."

The station's primary base was composed of a flat rectangular compound that stretched 400 square meters in diameter. Straddling the center of it was a half skeletal tower, likely either under active construction or discarded by the contractors. On the underside were three fat round cylinders

"This shitty backwater station has a name?" Darius sat down in the gunner's chair, compacting his hybrid rifle and strapping it upon his back.

"A pretentious one, too." Burke responded, crossing his arms and seeing the station itself drawing closer into view as the Panera neared it.

"Use that word correctly, please." Brooklyn leaned over and slowed their pace, making sure the angle was at the proper spot.

"I've catered to your inner grammar gestapo long enough, Brook. I deserve a little slack when it comes to the galactic trade language."

"No, you'll cater some more." Brooklyn piped, not making eye contact. "We should probably try to contact the councilor again if she isn't too tied up."

"I'd prefer it if we did things our own way, and pleasantly surprised our friendly neighborhood politician." Darius mentioned.

"What if we run into a den of varren like last time." Burke faced him, smirking. "Or a station full of bloothirsty murder bots."

"Are you acting concerned after all we've been through together?" Darius cackled.

"You two shut up for just a second." Brooklyn calmly ordered, as they were being hailed by the station. The cockpit's side screen flickered and blasted static before unsheathing the view of the receiving end. There was a wedge shaped head, colored a hot pink. From the head dangled a mass of thin, rubbery tentacles, like a squid.

The rubbery skin of the species, a hanar as they were called, seemed to glow and fluctuate as it spoke in its polite tone. "Sundermount Station. This one wishes to inquire the identity and purpose of the approaching vessel, if its captain is opt to enlighten."

"Uh." Brooklyn's mind bustled, Burke quarreling with the urge to bite his nails and Darius shaking his head and trying not to make some sort of emotional shriek. It was then where Brooklyn was regretting not contacting the Citadel for an update. "This is Captain Seltzer of the IFV Panera. My crew and I are just stopping for some supplies."

"Very well. This one wishes to remind you that prices on black market goods are seventeen percent steeper than customary, and may continue to rise during time." One of his several tentacles extended and moved around on the computer panel. "Please continue to hangar eight. I will notify the port authority of your arrival."

"Thank you. Out." Brooklyn sighed in relief as the feed terminated. She wheeled the Panera around while she tapped into the docking assistance cycle, bringing up several brackets on the main screen which guided her in the correct direction.

"So what the hell are we going to do there?" Darius laughed, overjoyed that the plan worked. "Shop for mail order brides and nuclear missiles?"

"Don't joke about that." She shook her head. "We're just going to... politely... and randomly ask some questions, I guess. Then we'll move on from there." Brooklyn shrugged her shoulders as she flew through one of the brackets on the screen, making her approach and watching small freighters fly toward or away from the station.

"Yeah and hope we don't come across as a suspicious shrinking violet while asking them. That'll earn us the business end of a gat." Burke scratched an itch under his right ear, difficult with the gloves on his fingers.

"Or the shackles and a one way ticket to the iridium mines in the crust of Jerkwater, Milky Way." Darius leaned forward, looking back to Burke.

* * *

><p>As the Panera's side door panned open, all that could be heard was the sound of a dozen welding tools and construction off in the various pockets of the floating depot, as well as the distant chatter of many a visitor within it.<p>

What was seen in the interior of the station, however was an eye opening experience. From where they stood, it was easy to see that the entire inner station was one massive room the size of a large town. Inside were heaps and masses of metal shanties and stationary platforming that rose from ground level to a maximum of twenty feet. Tucked in the maws of these steel shacks were shops or living quarters, sporting their colored signs above the doors and kiosks inside, as well as their patrons and owners mingling about, mixed together like livestock in the close quarters. The areas were accessible through designated pathways with people in them and litter on the sides. Some even led on top of other shacks and buildings, where bridges and walkways were built for elevated detours. Looking up, one could see the ceiling high above, a massive metal pillar with windows and balconies, which stretched to the ground, possibly the port authority center. Three huge black spheres with various lights bored into it served as the source of light, triple artificial suns.

"It's a-" Brooklyn stammered, her pupils dilating.

"A massive black market bazaar." Burke gasped, wondering where to look next.

"Wow. This makes Omega look like the Presidium." Darius scratched a mandible and chuckled nervously.

"I dunno." Burke spoke, eying the shops as he stepped closer, the other two following. "It doesn't seem like there's anything too nasty or seedy about these folks... apart from the whole... black market atmosphere." He cleared his throat as he regretted the irony in his statement.

Brooklyn smiled as she stepped in the middle of the bazaar itself, brushing against two volus who carried sacks of illicit goods. Sundermount station seemed to have it all; arms dealers, food, exotic liquor, clothing, pirated omni-tool software, and unlicensed pharmacies full of black market chems and drugs.

"Where to start..." Darius clasped Burke on the shoulder.

"Find a bar. Always a bar." Burke nodded. "In places like this, the more expensive bars tend to be ripe and juicy with the best kind of gossip."

Brooklyn was trying to get Burke's attention by tapping him on the shoulder, but he was completely desensitized by ambiance and sights. Four armed hacks were approaching them, two quarians, a turian and an asari. One of the quarians yanked out a metal scanning wand and waved each of the privateers down with it, a purplish beam running across their armor and clothing.

The trio did not bother to challenge these bouncers, as it would be an unnecessary endeavor in more than two ways. "You lot are that new arrival right? From that salarian corvette?" The turian piped, his two forefingers tapping the grip of his vindicator assault rifle. All three of them were dressed in yellow and black armor, the quarians having gold tinted visors and faceplates on their hazard suits.

"That's right constable." Brooklyn held out her hand. "Captain Seltzer, IFV Panera. These is my first mate, Burke Craddock, and over there is our gunnery officer Darius Macerdin."

"Well what do you know?" The turian grasped her hand, firming it. "Manners from black market patrons are usually more blunt towards Sundermount security." He looked back and nodded to the others, then back to the mercenaries. "In honor of the regulations here, I'm going need to confiscate the weapons of you and your crew."

"Wait- wha-" Darius took a step forward, Burke stopping him.

"But why?" Brooklyn eyed a drell that had an assault rifle slung upon his back. "Seems most others are slinging heat and you're telling us to-"

"Because they're carrying permits. You wanna buy one? Talk to the port authority quartermaster." He pointed to the beanstalk of a pillar in the center of the station. "In the meantime, I'm going to need to your weapons until you can carry or buy them here."

"Trust us." A quarian spoke, his voice sounding wiry and metallic through his environment suits voice communicator. "We've had some issues in the past with some unruly folks. If any of you are biotics we won't give you suppression bracelets, and you can keep your omni tools, but we'll always be on the lookout."

Brooklyn sighed. "Fine. Turn em' in guys." Brooklyn unslung her barracuda submachinegun, Burke turning in his shotgun and pistol, and Darius very reluctantly doing the same with his hybrid rifle and sidearm. The other three grasped the gear, including the extra thermal clips, where they nodded and walked off. "Enjoy your stay. The bars often double as inns where you can rent some beds. Or you could just stay in your cabins. We only charge docking fees after four hours at anchor. They'll be billed to you before you leave. We'll sign you three into the logs automatically, now that you've kindly told us your names. Thanks, bye." The turian tapped into his omni tool and trotted off along with with the other dock cronies.

"Well, I feel more naked than a hanar in a snowstorm." Burke sighed, stepping his way toward the others.

"Let's just avoid picking any fights and hope we don't somehow piss off any bipolar krogan." Brooklyn immediately stepped out of the way of three vindictive looking batarians and checked her six, Darius groaning in disbelief.

* * *

><p>Burke had spotted a square structure, the 'south-most' wall having an open entrance with two orange, green and yellow neon wireframes resembling winged asari, not unlike angels. The venue was called the "Stampede Bar and Grill" and was located in between an adult software store and a kickboxing circuit house, where the three saw a match between two lightweights, a drell and a salarian, both who were doing an admirable job bouncing around the ring and smacking each other in some way.<p>

The Stampede had a large square bar and stools hugging the walls, the center holding tables with umbrellas over them, possibly in case a drunk skycar driver decided to urinate out the window above the area. The venue was surprisingly vacant, only four humans, armed of course, sitting at the eastern side of the bar and sipping cocktails or eating the meat of skewered pyjaks.

Burke immediately sat at the north end of the bar, not too far from the seedy and suspicious looking humans. His associates planted themselves on a stool as well. From a backroom behind the counter, there were heavy footsteps, as well as a non-rhythmic tapping that drew closer. A krogan stepped out, carrying a cane of some sort and tapping the way he walked. He was wearing a large apron and his eyes were cauterized shut. He then stepped in front of the three patrons.

"Some new customers?" The krogan bellowed inquisitively.

"That's right. Three." Burke spoke.

"Bit of a deep bearer tone, a hint of unusual politeness. Smooth and little vocal distortion..." The krogan nodded. "Wow, humans must love my place. What's everybody having?"

"Just some potato or yam wedges with sour cream. And some tupari, paragade or whatever you've got." Burke spoke.

"Any quarians or turians in your party?" The blind krogan asked.

"Aye. Just me." Darius responded.

"Very well. I'll get your order sanitized." The krogan waved a hand which his asari bar assistant caught side of, who nodded and head toward the back room to prepare the food. "No actual drinks for anyone? We've got a hell of a lot of beers on tap. A lot of ones from Citadel space, too."

"Er..." Brooklyn looked around. "No thank you."

"Well suit yourself." The krogan bartender leaned over and grabbed a rag which he slid over the edge of the bar.

"Can we ask you a few things? Mister...?" Burke questioned.

"The name's Gatatog Bardin. A Gatatog only in name, since I've pretty much tried to distance myself from the traditionalist crap that's overtaken that clan. It's actually the primary reason I left Tuchanka actually, before I became a merc and got my eyes blown out on my last mission." The krogan leaned on the counter and nodded to the three. "As for talk, we tend to trade in rumor as well as food and liquor, so whaddya wanna know?"

Brooklyn withdrew a cigarette and lit it with her omni tool, jump starting the burning tobacco and looking back up. "Yeah, who runs this place?"

"They'd never admit it, and it really all adds up if you think about it... but..." The krogan leaned closer. "This station was formerly a batarian political prison for some backwater faction. Once the faction got a coup de taut, the prisoners were released, and the place was shut down. It was then discovered by the Wreta'Kurai, and they invested in it, got it back up and running, and turned it into a supermarket for pirates."

Burke and Brooklyn blinked and looked at eachother.

"The Wreta'Kurai?" Brooklyn repeated, still surprised.

"That cabal of quarian gangsters and pirates?" Burke scratched his chin. "I had no idea they were well off enough to have this big of an operation."

"Explains why there's so many quarians here..." Darius' mandibles fluttered. "As well as all the black and gold on the security armor."

"Indeed. Don't tell anyone I let you on this." Bardin waved a hand. "They'll probably get pretty pissed if they find out, though I don't know how much, them being a 'secret society' and all."

"You know what kind of operations they're running here?" Darius asked sitting up.

"Smuggling, piracy, racketeering, prostitution, pushing drugs, weapons, and bootlegged technology. You know, the usual." Bardin yawned, baring his massive maw and jagged teeth. "From what I hear, the Wreta'Kurai aren't much for gambling, loansharking or anything else, really. Though they did start out as mercenaries and I think they still put out guns for hire every now and then."

"What sort of weapons do they push?" Burke questioned.

Brooklyn interjected. "Better yet, why are you only allowed to carry weapons if you have a permit here? Did something happen?"

"Patrons were allowed to pack heat until about nine years ago. A few other factions tried to sneak in and slowly take over the operations here. Vorcha, the batarian mafia, a few bastards from Aria T'Loak's outfit, as well as a few others."

Brooklyn pushed the subject further. "Any others? Like the Blue Suns?"

"Funny you should mention that." Bardin huffed, standing up straighter. "I don't think I can tell you much, but the Blue Suns did make a deal a week or two ago with the Wreta'Kurai."

The three privateers looked at eachother and nodded.

"I see." Darius huffed. "You sure you know any details about it?"

"Not one bit. They have a lid on it tighter than a turian admiral's ass... no offense to you friend." The blind krogan addressed Darius. "Anyway, I gotta go check on that food you ordered. I'll be back." Bardin then felt and sniffed his way toward the backroom again.

The crew of the Panera looked to the side, confirming their feeling of being watched. Three out of four of the humans were staring at them, their faces radiating either expressionless or genuine pissed off demeanor.

Brooklyn smiled and waved somewhat nervously, then decided to not make eye contact with any others.

Burke cleared his throat. "Uh..." He chuckled a bit. "Anybody know any good jokes?"

"Yes..." One of the humans on the other end of the bar announced, the only one who wasn't staring at them, flipping his empty whiskey glass and placing it on the counter firmly. The voice was distinctly english, with threads of welsh and scottish. "Your acting, for one."

The man stood up, off the stool, carrying a stern, yet swaggering demeanor. He was a scrawny man with long red hair and eyes black as dark space, wearing two pistols on his hips and light mercenary armor. "It's pretty obvious you three aren't here at Sundermount station for the brothels and pirated action vids. Right down to the fact that you didn't even order any booze."

"You can't trust anyone who doesn't drink." The only women in the red haired man's group spoke, smirking out one mouth. "Even a little."

Darius stood up off the stool, stepping closer toward him. "You four stooges aren't trying to tee off a good old fashioned donnybrook are you?" The turian groaned. "Because it really doesn't matter worth varren piss that you all have pieces and we don't. I'll still fuck you all up good."

A bigger, muscular human in the opposing group lifted himself off of the seat. "Shut the hell up, you shell headed xeno fuck!" The human accosted him, his nostrils flaring like an angry bull. "You fringe-headed dodos always talk tough. It makes me sick!"

Darius' mandibles lifted in excitement. "I'm pretty sure you oily, pink skinned wankers were given flexible lips like that so you can suck turian cock."

The racist human groaned, pulling out an assault rifle from his back, assembling it, and pointing it at him. "I didn't think you turians were much for brains. Let's see how you think with them spread all over the floor, dickhead..."

There was a harsh droning sound, the assault rifle lighting up, and Darius' two human associates flinching or gasping. The man's rifle lifted up, his arms glowing blue as he struggled to bring it back down, his arms in a lock.

The long haired human stepped closer, his arms held in a biotic stance as he faced him, taking the weapon out of his hands. "David, you know as well as the rest of us that these clowns aren't worth the trouble." He spoke, releasing the biotic grip, the racist human gasping and holding out his hands, looking at them. His biotic leader gently pushed him back to the bar and placed the rifle on the counter. "Let loose a little, boyo... BARTENDER! Get my friend here another Lime Rickey when you get back will ya?"

After a few minutes, the rounds came, including the order for the racist compatriot. Everyone began digging in, save for the biotic, who stepped closer and sat on the stool next to Burke.

"I really don't mean to be a nosy bastard..." He began.

"Well you kinda are, buddy." Burke retorted, immersing a yam wedge into the side of sour cream and consuming it whole afterward.

"...but I just wanted to know what you're doing here." He tilted his head.

"I'm being harassed by some jackass." Burke took a drink of his soda.

"The hell are you lot so interested in knowing what our purpose here is anyway?" Brooklyn swung herself around and glared at him.

"Because..." The man straightened his posture. "If we're here for the same purpose, we can work together..." He grasped a toothpick from a container and placed it into his mouth. "...or we can fight over jurisdiction and ultimately go at each others throats. Either way, it'd be great to get it all over with now and let loose. These people that work here are trustworthy, and there won't be repercussions if we spill our guts."

"Well..." Brooklyn stammered.

"We can't trust them, Brook." Burke placed a hand on her arm, and wiped his face with a napkin. "They're probably against us, anyway."

The red haired man made a toothy grin. "Well, I know that we're probably on the same team now... but you're probably not going to confess..." He stood up, grasping a wedge and placing it into his mouth, chewing it. Burke looked up and glared at him.

"You know, you look kinda..." The biotic spoke with a half mouthful. "...Burkish and... Craddockish if you know what I mean."

Burke smacked his palms on the edge of the table, his face stony and his blood boiling. He looked up to face the man's polar opposite expression. "Who the hell are you. What are you doing here?"

The man swallowed the wedge and shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe if you were more diplomatic, maybe I could answer." He turned his back on him, looking over his shoulder before he walked away and checking his armor for crumbs. "You know, two of my crew members are missing and nothing I've asked around this town has added up. I still think you and your two lads can tie this thing together, and are hiding something. I really like those two crewman. So if you see anything, let me know."

After the man joined his cronies, Burke finished off his wedges and watered it down with his tupari, then stood up, placing a credit chit on the counter.

"Wha-" Brooklyn stammered. "Where are you going?"

"I'll be right back." He droned, walking out of the venue and into the streets.

* * *

><p>"Alright, here we go." The quarian shopkeeper placed a package on the counter, Burke withdrawing a credit chit. "That's three-fifty for the asari sand..." He pointed at the sack, then to a small medicine bottle. "And one hundred for the hercaphrozine."<p>

Burke handed him the credit chit, taking the rest and placing them in his bag. "Thanks."

"No problem human. Don't use it all in one day, unless you feel like getting shit faced." The quarian drug dealer laughed, turning away.

Burke looked at the rest of the sights, seeing skycars zooming to their destinations, neon signs, and overjoyed customers satisfied that they finally had gotten their hands on rocket launchers or vintage pornography. If there was not a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, he knew not.

Suddenly, a medium sized sky transport fell out of formation with the others, smacking into the ground just in front of Burke, who flinched and jumped back in self preservation. The back door, which was slightly ajar, was opened, a shrieking woman in a green short sleeved jump suit rushing out and panting. She could not have been more than seventeen.

At that very moment, the port guards were on the scene, chasing her down, one of the quarians tackling her and pinning her to the ground. Many patrons, Burke included rushed to the scene to watch intently.

"Think you can just break away, eh?" The quarian patronized her, lifting the sobbing woman to her feet, the other guards grabbing her by the shoulders.

"Please!" She screamed. "I don't wanna go to the mines!"

The quarian shook his head. "Alright. Fine."

The woman stared, confused, yet horribly relieved.

"Take her to the joy division where she can spread her legs just like the others." The quarian beckoned. The woman began screaming and crying profusely, trying to wrestle herself away as the bouncers muscled her off the scene.

Burke stood, frozen. "Damn it..."

He had to get back to the bar.


	22. Smoking Gun

**Chapter 21 – Smoking Gun**

With his messenger bag full of new items flopping about as he ran, Burke leaped forth in between two patrons, trying to cover as much distance as possible as he fled to the bar. This biotic mercenary, whoever he may have been, seemed less likely to be a charlatan.

As the neon lights Stampede bar buzzed his retinas, he immediately thought of his father. Jason Craddock, though living in the terminus systems, could not be bothered to own slaves or indentured servants, despite two out of every five fiefdoms of farmland and industrial centers on the world of Cuno having them. Because of this, Burke's father could care less about the nettlesome and inhumane activities that went on in the free republic of Cuno. He chose not to get involved, and even acknowledged the advantages of indentured servitude. Burke, however had always thought the practice was reprehensible. These quarian pirates were trafficking people, obviously, though he did not know who the buyer was.

He rushed into the inner segment of the bar, Darius and Brooklyn at the entrance and flinching when they both saw him.

"Burke!" Darius greeted, surprised. "We were just about to come looking for-"

"Where's that biotic merc?" Burke panted. "I need to talk to him."

"His friends are still at the bar, but I think he went to use the restroom." Brooklyn pointed in the direction, her first mate quickly sprinting past them, leaving Darius and her to their confusion.

The men's restroom door opened as Burke's heels mashed on the floor, skidding him to a stop. The red haired man walked out, his black eyes making contact with the others.

"Hello there, Burke." He yawned, stepping beside him and crossing his arms. "You look like you've just seen a ghost. Something eating at you?"

"The Wreta'Kurai is trafficking people." Burke panted. "They were carrying a few of them to one of the docks in sky vans. One of them had engine trouble or something and fell right in front of me when I was in the market. A screaming woman ran out and got nabbed, and forced into the brothels as punishment for trying to escape."

The man's usual smugness evaporated into an expression of serious concern, his brows furrowing and his arms slowly uncrossing in thought. "This is... a little too convenient to believe. What were you doing in the market?"

Burke rubbed his neck, knowing he would have to be completely honest. "Shopping. I'm a redhead, thought I'd restock."

"A redhead?" The man murmured. "Like me?" His eyes looked up to the ceiling as he pondered in thought. "Oh right. As in red sand. Sorry to hear that, lad."

"Yeah, so are my crewmates." Burke sighed.

"Now, I wonder where these poor bastards are heading... and if Penn and Korolev are with them." The man changed the subject.

"The woman mentioned mines before she was hauled off." Burke confirmed.

"Damn... if what you say is true, this is becoming more disturbingly clear by the moment." He paced around a few laps before he turned back to Burke. "You are Burke Craddock, right?"

"Aye." Burke nodded.

"Butcher of Blackhats, the Blue Terror. That Burke Craddock?"

Burke sheepishly nodded. "Well that WAS me..."

"I see. Just making sure." He stepped in front of him and crossed his arms. "Staff Lieutenant Alec Greyjoy. Alliance corsairs."

Burke began to extend his hand, but it was clear that Alec did not want to shake it. "That's a nice military haircut you have there, lieutenant." He sarcastically remarked.

"Thanks. Keeps me discreet. Being under the radar is one of the more imperative qualities to being a corsair." Alec cracked no smiles, his voiding eyes casting their gaze into his. "So are you and your mates here for a reason other than shopping for dope and eating potato wedges?"

"We have a contract from the Citadel Council. We're probing the disappearance of a bunch of turian prototype armor." Burke knew he may regret telling him all this later, but there were clearly no other leads. "We recently confirmed that the arsenal was intercepted by a Blue Suns splinter group, led by former turian hierarchy general Ukoirnas."

Alec nodded, his hands on his hips, beginning to pace some more. It was becoming clear that this was a distinguishing trait for his thinking pattern and personality. "Project War Drum, eh?"

"How the hell do you know?"

"Burke... it seems it'll be in both our best interests if we helped one another after all." He began to walk past him. "Pay your tab, rally your mates. Meet me in the skycar parking section behind this venue."

Burke blinked, attempting to follow him. "What are we doing, Alec?"

"We're going to raid the administration pillar. We'd be delighted if you helped." With that, Alec was out of the room.

* * *

><p>"He's using us as muscle. Cheap, expendable muscle." Darius sighed, following Burke to the front of the bar. Brooklyn followed behind closely, choosing to remain silent. "I can't fucking believe you're buying into this. We oughta space your ass Burke."<p>

Burke did not respond as he stepped over to Bardin and his asari assistant as they scrubbed dishes and ale glasses. The blind krogan immediately smelled their presence and stepped over to him, giving him his receipt.

"Can I ask you a personal question, Bardin?" Burke asked.

"As long as it doesn't involve you goading me into giving you a discount, I'm game." Bardin confirmed, continuing to scrub the whiskey glass.

"Is the damage to your eyes superficial?" Burke began to reach into his pocket.

"Hell no!" The krogan laughed. "The grenade that blinded me was pretty powerful, though. With modern medical technology and my natural adaptive healing, I can get these peepers back in business in no time."

Burke nodded, disregarding that the krogan could not see this gesture. "But you can't because..."

"The clinics here are more expensive than a blowjob from an asari matriarch, that's why." He placed one hand, the one with the cloth on the counter. "A bartender can't even hope to drop that kind of bill, especially with those hooligans coming to hit me up for protection fees every thursday. It's corporate injustice you'd expect to see on Noveria, not in a pirate enclave full of supposedly motley bastards. These quarians are assassins of goodwill. Coming from a krogan, that's saying a lot."

Bardin heard a slap on the counter, a credit chit with 10,000 units of legal tender attached to it being dropped. "I was going to save this for a new rifle but..." Burke stepped away and gave a two fingered salute. "I think I can hold out until next payday."

His asari assistant grabbed it and held it to verify it, nodding her head and assuring him it was legit before handing to to him. Bardin merely held his mouth agape. "I..."

"Consider it a tip for being a good fellow on a generally shitty space station." Burke spoke while walking away with his comrades.

"I-" Bardin repeated once more. "Th-thank you! If you need an extra merc or something, I'll be glad to help once I get my eyes back! I owe everything to you, human! Everything!"

Darius' thoughts were bouncing off whether or not it was a rather unnecessarily bold act of charity or truly the right thing to do, and because of this mulling, he chose to not say anything. Brooklyn did not speak of it either as they head out of the bar entrance, though smiled rather warmly as she looked at him, eye contact not being returned.

* * *

><p>They all stood in the middle of the lot, surrounded by parked skycars and the sounds of distant chattering and street music. The three overhead light spheres were slowly initiating their night cycle as the turian and the six humans stood under the increasingly dimming blue glow light.<p>

"That's a certain candidate for the most inane and incogitable fucking plan ever." Brooklyn blew the cigarette smoke out of her mouth, overreacting. "How'd you get to be a staff lieutenant again?"

Alec placed his hands behind his back and paced between a sporting shuttle and a junker skycar. "By not sticking my neck out for a guy who murdered several alliance naval officers and crewmen. That doesn't help in keeping your career."

Both Brooklyn and Burke were rather disgruntled by this last statement, Darius snickering at it a bit due to his agitating sense of humor. The corsairs under Greyjoy's command seemed puzzled. "Was there a joke there, sir?" Serviceman 1st class David Beecher, the bulky racist soldier asked. "Because we didn't get it."

Alec held out a hand. "Well, to give you the short of it, lieutenant Seltzer was an undercover alliance operative that was snooping into Burke's anti-Alliance operations when he was in the Blue Suns, and she became a little too intimate with-"

"Okay. Can it." Burke snapped while he stared at the ground.

"This guy killed Alliance sailors?" Service chief Nina Gardner, the sole woman in the group inquired. "The hell are we working with him for? We should bag him and bring him in!"

"You're working with him because the skipper told you to, remember?" Gunnery chief Coulter Martello, the shortest and ironically youngest (considering his rank) corsair in the group reminded as he readied his sniper rifle.

"That fucker is a murderer! We have to bring him in! At least after we complete the mission!" Beecher yelled, pointing at his commanding officer and glaring at Burke.

"We can't arrest him, serviceman." Lieutenant Greyjoy affirmed.

"Why the hell not?" Beecher and Gardner yelled simultaneously.

"It's quite complicated."

"They're fugitives!" Gardner gasped, her hand arching to the privateers.

"Fugitives we can't touch." Alec's tone was firm, but surprisingly patient. "Taking down that tower's operations is more than a four man job. In the meantime, Martello, Gardner and Beecher need to get over to the landing pad and confirm if Penn and Korolev are among the slaves. If they are, break them free and kill every last pirate you see."

"Between this tower job and your crew members possibly being shipped off and never seen again..." Brooklyn began, noticing her cigarette was burnt down to a stub before throwing it on the ground and stamping it out. "You're awfully calm about this."

"By stealing the dossiers and manifests, we'll find out where they're heading regardless." He nodded toward her, stepping over to one of the sporting shuttles, a '72 Mulder. "Secondly, I'm not one to worry about problems I have little to no control over."

His body was immolated with a dusty blue glow as his hand retracted, then thrust forward. A biotic thrust distorted the air and shattered the side window of the shuttle, Alec leaning inside and unlocking the car in its entirety. The door slid open vertically after he withdrew himself and looked to the others, the crew of the Panera surprised by his tenacity, though the corsairs seemed to be waiting for him to make his point.

"Korolev and Penn's capture may very well have been related to Project War Drum. Where they're taking them, or are taking them, is most likely a staging area for Ukoirnas' operations. The closer we get to them, the better." He began to step into the vehicle.

"The data we found on Golmes pointed us to a dusty old moon called Ble'Gan in the Century Omega cluster." Burke mentioned, stepping into the starboard back seat of the car. "You think it may be that place?"

"We need to confirm that it is first." Alec mentioned, nestling into the fine leather seating.

"Plus we need to floor that slaver op first and foremost." Darius climbed in and sat near Burke. Brooklyn climbed into a large van shuttle after Beecher smashed its windows with the butt of his rifle. It was quite clear that these vehicles had been previously stolen somewhere, as the security systems were disabled, possibly after being the result of professional theft.

The rest of Greyjoy's crew began to ride with Brooklyn as she lifted off and headed toward the docking sector. The sporting shuttle, however was heading toward the tower.

The interior of the car was lit with a low purple and blue lighting from the dashboard's heads up display. Alec took his hands off the wheel momentarily to grasp his two pistols from his hip, a shurikan machine pistol and a Kessler naval sidearm. He handed them back to his passengers. "Thought you might need these, concerning your obvious lack of weapons."

"How'd you all manage to get a weapons permit anyway, considering how expensive it is?" Darius asked, taking the machine pistol and placing it in his lap.

"Forgery. Chief Gardner is pretty good at that sort of thing." He swerved out of the way of a passing hauler.

"You all aren't the saints you claim to be, are you?" Burke smirked, adjusting the sights of the heavy pistol he carried.

"And you don't seem like the sinner you claim to be, Mr. Craddock." Alec was no more than a few feet away from the tower when he hovered near a catwalk a good several feet above the ground, putting it into a high altitude park. "I guess the galaxy is neurotically gray after all."

"With a name like Greyjoy, I'd expect you to hold such a belief." Burke cracked a smile, stepping out of the car onto the edge of the catwalk just after Darius fled out.

"Oh, so not only are you a murderer, but you're also a felony practitioner of harebrained puns." Alec snickered, stepping out.


	23. Five Angry Quarians

**Chapter 22 – Five Angry Quarians**

"Hey, you three!"

The armored human tower guard was approaching the three unknown guests as they filed through, a shotgun held in one hand. "Hey!" He repeated, approaching Burke who merely held an expressionless glance. "Need some identificati-"

Burke stepped to the side, Darius appearing behind before lunging out and striking the soldier in the throat with a nimble pistol whip. Burke darted behind him while his airway was still mashed, grasping him under the shoulders and dragging him into an empty office. Being an office lined with several windows where the walls should have been, he stuffed the unconscious guard behind the desk while Alec hacked the personal computer on top of it.

Darius kept a lookout, pistol behind his back. "Got any idea where our weapons were taken?" He relished at the thought of holding his hybrid rifle again, as an hour without it was too long.

"Turns out..." Alec had opened a few of the computer's port locks with his omni tool, viewing the area map. "...it's in a contraband vault on this very floor, it seems."

"You're in luck, Darius." Burke stepped out in front of him, exiting the office. The interior had a homey feel to it with white and yellow carpeting, yet the walls presented the metallic and calloused facade of the rest of the station.

"You're heading out already?" Alec asked, standing up straight and looking at him.

"We have to buy each other some time. You guard him while he " He grabbed a pack of cigarettes from his pack, tossing it to Darius. "Give this to Alec. Poor guy needs a good smoke."

"Where are you going to go?" Darius asked, attempting to catch up with him.

Burke took a look at his predator pistol, rotating his wrist as he studied its texture. "Well, you're going to get the weapons. I'll do my thing and you do yours. I'm gonna vaporize the son of a bitch that's running the operation while you guard that Alliance prick as he does his thing."

"Damn you Burke Craddock!" Alec bellowed from within the office. "You're already keen on taking a dump up my plan now, eh? Well I hope you catch one in the forehead, you bloody pirate."

Darius ignored the corsair. "Burke. Don't you want any of your weapons from the vault?" Darius' eyelids gaped wide, his mandibles dancing in puzzlement.

"Shove em' way up there, Darius." He entered the elevator, the doors snapping shut. "Waayyyy up there."

* * *

><p>The penthouse floor, though progressively fragmentary and half baked, was still quite luxuriant. Reaching high above the pressurized shell of Sundermount station and into space itself, as evident from the windows that looked directly out into the aether black. It was decorated with a purplish interior with several plants native to the quarian homeworld stuffed in pots and placed in corners between peculiarly shaped furniture and shelves of random items.<p>

Burke emerged from the lift's interior, the pistol he borrowed from Alec pointed directly at the center of his vision and his angered eyes staring down the sights as he swerved the weapon around and scanned for evident targets.

The rooms he stepped through were well lit, one of them being a living area with several enclosed glass cases with small to medium sized animals within them, as well as abstract artwork on the walls that did not make much sense to the eye.

Burke was not sure where exactly to proceed from there, but his eyes then ogled a hinging double door with the symbol of the Wreta'Kurai carved into the smooth obsidian that overlaid it, a circular emblem with a yellow template and a black silhouette of an exotic sap flower that once grew on the quarian homeworld of Rannoch.

A single pyjak in the glass casing screeched at him as he clutched a cluster of rubber shrubbery and shook it, the sound muffled as he sidestepped along the walls. He managed to lay an offensive gesture wayward to the creature before opening the door and immigrating inside.

Burke's eyes were greeted to the sight of an executive tier office, a desk at the end and taxidermal animals lining the section. Flanking either side of the room were windows which allowed one to stare into the starry void. An array of labeled weapons, some even antiques were stacked on the wall. Blades, rifles, pistols, and a rusted halberd that looked to be as elderly as time itself.

At the desk, a female quarian sat in a high reared chair, her arms crossed along the table. Burke immediately upraised his lent pistol and pointed it at the woman in question as he took a few steps toward her.

The quarian scoffed in her respirator. "So what criminal garrison do you schlepp for, lapdog?" She chuckled, her voice showing several signs of aging. She leaned back in her seat, almost as if she was confident. "Aria? Cerberus?"

"The Citadel." He placed his free hand on the bottom of the pistol's grip, supporting it enough to keep it pointed at her. "Hand the slave manifest over, you goddamn hag."

She held her hands up, and stood up. On her environment suit she wore gold metallic scales along her sides, several markings edged into the centers of her suit, mostly platinum. "I have a better idea." She clapped her hands.

Before Burke knew it, he was flanked by two quarian gunmen, and then two more that came through the door. He obviously didn't check the sides enough to know there were a duo of them hiding within the room. Acting almost reluctant, he grasped the aft of the pistol and handed it to the male quarian, who confiscated it before laying it on the desk and sliding it toward.

The turian security officer, as well as the asari from their initial arrival stepped through the door, also armed. "Miss Keltaya, I'd like you to meet Burke Craddock, typical privateer scum. You can read the file if you want, you can find it on the net." The turian prattled on, stepping to the left of the desk. A chair was brought by one of the henchman and placed on the other side of the desk, the others forcing Burke to sit in it.

"Much obliged Dahnnis. How advantageous that you're becoming more competent and less of an unreliable prick like the first week as my security chief." She stared at Burke behind a glass shield, the latter noting the eeriness of her lack of notable expression. Her chair swerved slightly from left to right as she entertained her restless legs. "You're quite a proficient nimrod Mr. Craddock. Our security footage allowed us to overhear your fatuous little plan from you and the other brigands who broke in here."

Keltaya switched on a flat holoscreen, toying with the channel to where it tuned to the live footage of the office Darius and Alec were in. Burke was treated to the mirrored perspective on his side of the desk, seeing Alec fidgeting with the computer and Darius standing guard with his now acquired hybrid rifle in his hands.

"Well, shame on me." Burke looked down, not making eye contact, his face contorting into a very odd expression.

"Are you smirking?" Keltaya growled. "I know human facial expressions when I see them. Have you no shame?"

"I tend to not worry about problems I have no control over." Burke leaned back and faced her.

Keltaya stood completely still, her chin raising off her knuckles as she stared at him. She suddenly leaned forward. "Good. Then I suppose you won't mind us torturing you for the next few hours after the situation has been contained."

"Sounds like fun." Burke unfurled a toothy grin and scratched his beard with his armored fingertips.

"Try uttering that when we're burning all those hairs in your beard out with a hot knife and electrocuting you simultaneously."

"So..." Burke cleared his throat. "You're the leader of the Wreta'Kurai, is that correct?"

"No, human. Try underboss or sub-matriarch. What have you." She leaned back in her chair and continued to swerve slightly. "All you need to know is that I call the shots around here. Everybody answers to me. That means I have the final say on what to do with you and your cronies. Down to how many fingers, toes, limbs, extremities we get to truncate off of you, and what length."

"You're easily the most belligerent quarian I've ever met." Burke laughed, taking his eye off the holoscreen where Darius and Alec continued to remain in their positions. "Then again, all the quarians I've met were on their pilgrimage, and sort of homesick and disgruntled."

"I went on my pilgrimage forty years ago." She placed her chin on her knuckles. "Found something copiously valuable. Would likely be on the admiralty board if I were to turn it in."

Burke folded his arms in his lap, his head moving to the left slightly, making contact with the muzzle of a quarian shotgun behind his ear and promptly retracting. "And you decided to be the material embezzler?"

The desktop computer's transmitter mewled before the underboss had a chance to confirm or deny the aforementioned statement. She slapped a palm from her webbed hand onto the screen. "I hope your team is nearing that floor."

"_We are, milady. Our engineer is locking down the elevators on the seventh floor. They'll have no chance of escape."_ The voice of a salarian lackey sounded.

"Good. Keep me notified." She switched it off and leaned back once again, the visor shield on her environment suit reflecting the screen, and very faintly, Burke's face as well. "You know your friend will never be able to get into the sensitive information. I think you all hazardously underestimate quarian electronics and software." She leaned back slowly and swerved to the side once again. "So you wanted to murder me in my own office? I almost forgot about that one line you dropped."

"Milady." Burke changed the subject, having an almost sing-song tone to her official address. "You were correct about one thing."

"Mr. Craddock you are acting awfully cocky for a condemned little pinkskin." Keltaya sat still, not bothering to move any longer.

"_This is sweeper team!"_ The emergency transmitter chimed. _"We're searching the whole area, including the offices. There doesn't seem to be anybody here."_

Keltaya rose out of her chair slowly, leaning forth and staring at the screen where Darius and Alec were still obviously where they always were. "Check again, dammit!"

"_Ma'am, I'm in Firth's office right now. Take a look yourself on surveillance."_

Keltaya's stomach felt as if had turned inside out.

"_Can you see me waving?"_

The same footage was being shown, now looking more and more like looped footage. Burke underestimated the strength of the omni-tool Alec wore. Alec was what they referred to as a sentinel, both biotic and tech savvy. While he admired the man's skill in covert operations, he was mostly admiring the cigarette pack trick from earlier, where he hid a potent supply of omni-gel to surpass the sinewy quarian firewalls.

"It was a really stupid plan." Burke smiled, shrugging. "And the sad thing is..."

There was a massive explosion which vibrated the tower, the men over the transmitter screaming in pain before a sudden silence. The lights shut off a few seconds before the penthouse's emergency power had defaulted, putting Burke's sinisterly joyful face in illumination once more.

"...you fell for it."

* * *

><p>The office floor's explosion had lugged several lumps of debris into the air which landed into the rest of the city station, smashing the windows of the vacant patrol vehicles and punching holes into the shacks which caught fire.<p>

Fire and ember rained down on the street level near the entrance of the tower. Darius was practically giddy with satisfaction as he skimmed out of the automatic doors that led to the exterior stairs. He once again was holding his hybrid rifle as he spearheaded Alec's movements. He switched to the shotgun attachment as he saw a turian thug begin to yank a pistol on him, firing into her bowels and sending her tumbling down the stairs. Quickly switching to the automatic fire once he spotted two more Wreta'Kurai lackeys, a fat batarian and a male quarian he attempted to take cover.

The batarian was already plugged full of holes, the quarian crawling once his shields were stripped away, barely making it to the dumpster he sought to seek refuge behind. A sky van sped forth, decelerating and descending from the ceiling, landing shoddily on the stairs and breaking one of the rocker panels off. Brooklyn Seltzer sat in the seat, opening the side door automatically.

Darius exchanged fire with the quarian from earlier, his suit's kinetic barriers now at one hundred percent again. Rounds were dented into the dumpster's broadside and the windows of the sky van were shot out from incoming fire. It was clear that at least one other shooter was present, from it was not clear where it came from at the moment.

Alec raced out of the entrance, leading a young woman in a green jumpsuit out of the tower, the one Burke had described from earlier. Alec threw his arm forth and chucked a 500 newton bolt of energy which curved upward and tackled the quarian gunner behind the bin.

The woman in question, though somewhat scared, was marveling at the display. She had no idea why anyone would want to rescue the likes of her, but she was infinitely grateful.

A Wreta'Kurai sniper had her in his sights, squeezing a shot from the rifle which passed through her left forearm and passed between her radius and ulna bones. She screamed in pain and fell on her side, clutching her bloodied wound. Alec mixed two profanities in a single word and slapped his omni tool. A kenetic pattern of energy based tech armor encompassed his form as he leapt in front of her and carefully began dragging her down behind the van. "Coulter! Our informant has been hit! We need some support!" He winced as another shot pinched his armor and shields, bouncing off with no physical harm.

"I already saw!" Martello had positioned himself on top of a sweat shop, adjusting his scope. The shooter was another human, stocked on the balcony of a power shack. The corsair infiltrator stared through the sight, propping the rifle up and crouching on one knee. "I got him in my sights. He's a fat motherfucker..."

As the pirate sharpshooter fired another round, this one bounching off the neck area of the tech armor, he was about to assume cover to change out his thermal clip before a shot blew a hole through both sides of his helmet. He dropped his rifle and slumped over the edge of the building he was on, defeated.

"You're clear, skipper! See you at the port!" Martello stood up and made a beeline for the staircase.

Darius was already in as he grabbed the wounded slave by her uninjured arm, Alec pushing her in from behind and deactivating his tech armor, getting inside the passenger's seat.

"Darius, give me your field dressing." Alec began to put pressure on the wound, readying a dose of medigel and disinfectant. The woman yelped in pain, her resilience still impressing everyone else in the car.

"You sure Burke will make it out of there?" Brooklyn looked back as she ascended the sky van, the door beginning to close.

"Isn't he a parkour expert or something?" Alec wrapped the length of the field dressing around the arm and administered a dosage of disinfectant, and second for the medigel.

"Not an expert. I've seen him really suck at it from time to time." Darius mouthed as he looked at the display of fire and smoke gasping from the central pillar. "I think your racist pal's explosives were a little too strong."

"That's why I asked that you spare one of them. Circle around the tower Brooklyn, and turn tail if you see patrol cars." Alec reminded, looking back to the woman they had recently just jailbroke. "Listen, I'm with the Alliance. I want you to remain perfectly calm, we'll get you out of here and find the rest of the-"

Brooklyn's ears were screeching as she handled the controls with trembling hands.

_Burke I swear to God. If you die on me I'll find some way to make you pay for it._

* * *

><p>"Bosh'tat." Keltaya paced around and shook her head as Burke remained in the chair feigning absent mindedness as he twiddled his thumbs. The henchmen stood still, exchanging concerned glances, unsure of what else to do. The administrator shouted something in her native language, the three rearmost quarians nodding and heading to the elevators.<p>

"Burke Craddock, I would compliment your cleverness..." Keltaya sat back down at her desk, switching off the computer. "...but something tells me you aren't smart enough to plan something like this."

"Blame the genetics." Burke murmured sarcastically, shifting in his seat. The asari gunwoman behind him nervously tapped the fuselage of her tempest sub-machinegun.

Keltaya nodded and looked up to the male quarian behind Burke, and switchd her computer back on. "I'm going to make some calls. I change my mind about him. Go ahead and do it, Prodian. Preferably utilize a method that doesn't leave any stains on the carpet."

Burke's eyebrows raised a bit, perhaps knowing it would be best if he went ahead with the plan. His eyes caught a glimpse of a black line which slid downward past his forehead.

Before he could react, he was being strangled with a length of rope, instinctively gasping and wheezing. The henchman was rather strong for a quarian as he felt like two massive steel beams were tied to the each end of the rope as he weighed him down. From the combination of panic and shock, he eventually flung out of his chair, the piece of furniture plummeting the opposite direction. The quarian had forced him face down and pinned his legs, Burke bringing up his omni tool and tapping in a hotkeyed digit closing his eyes.

Using his S.P.E.A.R training, Darius had prior rigged Alec's pistol to be an electromagnetic pulse bomb. The pistol's maintenance interface chamber burst with a loud crack, darkening the emergency lighting and sending the room into an uncomfortable black. The quarian strangler was alarmed by this development, letting go and rolling off of him, which he almost immediately regretting.

A sharp crunch was heard and the asari squealed, followed by the sound of a body falling. Gunfire was exchanged, the muzzle flashes illuminating the darkness of the room. To witness the ensuing battle was like viewing a flipbook, seeing mere frames of movement, as Burke was clearly holding the asari's SMG, firing rounds as he made his way toward the door.

The emergency power once again gave light directly after the firing stopped. The turian security chief lay on his back, clutching his abdomen which looked as if a handyman earned his pay by making a near perfect diagonal line of five holes with a drillbit. The quarian male's faceplate had been shot open, along with other wounds scattered without pattern, clearly lifeless. The asari clutched a bloodied nose and mouth as she continue to lay on the floor, one of the legs of the chair snapped off, most likely after Burke used it to flail her with it.

Burke had just gotten the door knob opened before he caught Keltaya taking one of the weapons off the wall, which looked positively alien and exotic in many ways. A geth pulse rifle, which was primed and fired as the human sprinted out, making a distinctive blasting sound as the door was sheared up before he closed it behind him, more holes being bored into it.

She released her finger from the trigger. The human was young and swift, and her aging body could most likely not keep up or chase him down. She was looking to her underlings who all lie bleeding on the floor. She stepped over to the turian, her webbed feet planting just shy of head, where he was treated to an upside down view of her.

"Bosh'tat!" She cursed, shaking her head. "Dahnnis, there are two massive idiots in this room. Which one is the bigger idiot?"

Dahnnis gasped after coughing up blood, the purplish liquid staining his mandibles.

"I'll answer: That would be me. For appointing your sorry ass to security chief." She unleashed a volley of geth plasma rounds into his already contused body, the battered asari staring in shock.


	24. When a Stranger Calls

**Chapter 23 – When a Stranger Calls**

As cramped and dull as the interior of the Panera was, Burke could not wait to get back inside and leave the station behind, at least for the time being. He was currently one story above the floor that had been spoliated by the Alliance military explosives Darius used. The demolition job certainly did show, as some of the floor segments had collapsed into the smoldering level below. The ceiling was caked with smoke and the klaxons were wailing like a barn full of disgruntled animals.

The tower clerks and Wreta'Kurai guards were too preoccupied with salvaging equipment and records, signaling for help, running damage control, or fleeing down the staircase. They payed no attention to the loose human with the stolen submachine-gun and merely shot milliseconds worth of suspicious glances his way before focusing on endeavors more important to them, such as their jobs and their lives. Burke assumed that everyone on this particular floor were not given details on the stations current saboteurs.

Burke emerged from the interior of the tower and stepped upon a catwalk area. Brooklyn immediately saw him as he waved his hands about on the exterior balcony and coasted the sky van his way. The side door opened as the vehicle inched downward, Burke stepping onto the rail and leaping within.

"Ow, dammit Burke, for crying out loud!" Darius gasped as he found his face in Burke's left armpit.

"Well Jesus, I'm sorry, Dare!" Burke's balanced faltered as Brooklyn sped away toward the dock.

Burke's boots were in Alec's arms as he struggled to keep them from kicking him in the face. "Settle down, Craddock! I'd rather not end up toothless."

"Oh shit, who's blood is this?" Burke gasped, noting the red stains on the seats. "Alec is this yours?"

"No!" Alec grunted as he pushed Burke's legs into the floorboard. "The target's been hit. She's currently fine though. Appreciate your concern, but show some sympathy for the poor gal will ya?"

Burke looked toward the young former slave in the green jumpsuit, looking noticeably more calm than before. She looked back at Burke with flustered eyes.

Burke outstretched his hand once he freed it from his weight. "What's up, ma'am. Burke Craddock, Citadel privateers."

She grasped his armored hand. "Sally Rodman. Bucharest High School class of '77."

"Hardee fucking har." Burke muttered. "Ahem! I mean, pleasure to meet you."

Darius "Burke, you're really mashing my foot. You gotta-"

"Darius, can it. For somebody who spent most of his military career in S.P.E.A.R you sure do complain a lot."

"When we get to the dock I'm going to strap a tech flare to your ass! That'll make you an easy target!"

Brooklyn remained completely silent throughout the banter, smiling and staving off a tear that desired to creep out of her eye.

The sky van soared over a quartirnity of dead Wreta'Kurai thugs, felled at the hands of the corsairs that seized and guarded the port. Brooklyn landed it, shutting off its engine and popping the passengers seat. Everyone began to pour out of the vehicle and made way toward their own ships, the patrol vehicles slowly making their way toward the area.

"Port authority locks are off captain, and I've hacked the hangar defenses so they can't trap us!" Nina Gardner yelled, running alongside Alec, who nuzzled the VIP into his shoulder to protect her from any more snipers.

"Excellent work, Gardner." He pointed to Martello. "Get inside the ship! There'll be time for pot shots later!"

There was the sound of screaming engines as the Panera eased upward and spat itself out of the hangar bay before the corsair frigate had a chance to do so. Soon the engines were prepped and followed the smaller craft, as the quarian pirates could only look onward with frustration and synthesizing vengeance.

* * *

><p>The Panera's interior was uncomfortably quiet a few minutes after FTL travel ceased, apart from the melodic beeping of the monitors and interfaces as well as the creaking of her aging hull. Darius was gormandizing himself with a plethora of turian rations, thus being far too busy to speak. Whilst sitting in the cockpit, Brooklyn felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as if she was being watched, where she turned and spotted Burke merely standing there like a timid goose.<p>

"Burke, sit down before you fall down." Brooklyn requested, turning back and attempting to reset the sensors.

Burke merely shrugged and rubbed his beard. "Any sign of Greyjoy and his crew?" He sat down in the gunner's seat.

"They'd better be here soon. I'd rather not follow through with this operation without them." Brooklyn grasped the cup of instant coffee on the dashboard and took a sip.

"Well uh..." Burke rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged.

Brooklyn glared at him, shaking her head and smirking. "Spit it out, Burke."

"As long as we're waiting for them, can we talk about us?" Burke bit his upper lip, Brooklyn shaking her head and beginning to say something.

"Yeah! Us! Go team!" Darius hollered with a half mouth full from the back, holding his fist in the air.

"No, Darius." Burke sighed leaning back in his chair. "Just... go eat in the captain's quarters."

"No, not in my room." Brooklyn held her hand to her temple.

"Hell yes! I haven't eaten in bed since since I was a kid!" Darius grasped the rations and made way toward the next room. "Hooray for captain's quarters.

"Darius no!" Brooklyn looked back and attempted to give him the evil eye.

"See you all in a few minutes!" Darius waved and disappeared past the ingress.

"Brook, focus on me for a second." Burke asked, leaning toward her. "What's to become of us? It's like we don't even-"

Brooklyn held her gloved hand to cut him off in mid sentence. "We agreed to not talk about this until our contract was fulfilled. It's better for everyone if we remained focused."

"For fuck's sake, Brook. The only thing we've talked about since December is- is business, and- and death, and war and politics-"

"No we don't talk about politics anymore, thank God." Brooklyn took another sip of coffee before realizing it would just cause her to become increasingly aggravated by the current situation so she set it down. "Shit, talking to you about politics is like talking to Friedrich Nietzsche about nihilism, it's amusing and simultaneously exhausting."

"Hey, just because I questioned your belief in utilitarianism a couple of times doesn't mean I have to argue about everything with you."

"We're arguing right now, Burke."

"No we're having a civil discussion!" Burke buried his face in his hands for a few seconds before leaning back in his chair again. "Look, I'm... it's that... every time that I go on a mission and get in a tussle, a firefight, or get chased by man eating varren, you're the first thing that comes up in my head." Burke crossed his arms. "Sometimes I forget we're even in love anymore."

"That's good. That means you're doing something right. I suggest you keep at it." Brooklyn withdrew a cigarette and used her omni tool to light it.

"Brook!" Burke threw his hands in the air, turning in his seat. "Listen... come clean with me. It can't be that the only thing that's holding you back are the contracts. There's something else involved."

"Why so quick to make assumptions, Burke?" She puffed out a brume of smoke before propping her booted foot on the dash board.

"Because you're pushing me away and I can tell there's a thicker angle. You're not a workaholic Brook, I know you." Burke leaned closer. "You're afraid of me getting killed, aren't you? You're so afraid of losing me that you're pushing me away before you lose me. It's a defense mechanism!"

Brooklyn shook her head. "Burke, no. That's not the rea-"

"The hell it isn't!" Burke stood up and head away from the cockpit, Brooklyn looking back at him, cigarette still in her mouth. "I've seen the look in your eye every time Darius and I go out on patrol, and when we come back. You're scared to death of not only me dying, but both of us!" He pointed at her. "You have death anxiety issues and you're afraid to show it." He fished his supply of red sand and supplement out of the bag and walked to the head.

"Burke! Wait a minute!" Brooklyn stood up and began to walk after him, shortly before the bathroom's door closed. She placed her hand on her temple yet again, an angry scowl on her face. "What do you want me to tell you?"

The transmitter at the cockpit began to chime, Brooklyn backtracking and sitting in the pilot's seat. The transmitter's ID showed up as an unknown, harking the possibility that it was Greyjoy and the corsairs.

She pressed the receiving button on the interface. "Panera here, go ahead... why isn't your video feed working?"

"Captain Brooklyn Seltzer?" A voice as deep as a chasm received on the line, possibly a mask.

She sat there and stared at the dashboard for a while in pondering. "Who the hell is this?"

"_You have to listen to me very carefully."_ With every third word, the pitch and tone seemed to change from deep, to shrill, to feminine, and finally a hissing bearer tone. It was clear that the voice masking was several layers thick.

"You'd better tell me who the hell you are quick before I promptly disconnect, so spit it out, cowboy."

"_I've been in contact with the citadel for a short while now."_ The voice shifted from bearer tone back to a throaty sound. _"I'm willing to directly pass on important information about Ukoirnas' operations directly to you as well as your employers."_

"I should have known you were in the information business." Brooklyn placed her cigarette in the ashtray on the dashboard and leaned closer. "Listen, info sounds tempting, but I think we can handle this ourselves without paying you exorbitant-"

"_No captain. You don't understand."_ A watery voice tone replied. _"I serve under Ukoirnas' command, and I know better than anyone that he's a twisted and power hungry barbarian. I'll give you the information for free."_

"Wait, what?" Brooklyn's eyebrows raised. Burke and Darius both emerged from their respective places, stepping closer to the cockpit. "You're a double agent in Ukoirnas' outfit? How long has this been going on?"

"_Since after your mission on Sargonis."_ Was the high pitched response, the word 'Sargonis' being far deeper.

"Why should we trust you?" Darius inquired.

"_Because you're already a few steps ahead. His funding on Sundermount was crippled for the time being, and I assume you know where to strike next?"_

"Where do you think we should strike?" Brooklyn questioned, not wanting to risk directly giving their plan away.

"_Ble-Gan, of course." _A more feminine voice mask interjected. _"Are you familiar that moon?"_

"Just that it's a dusty old moon the color of a baboon's ass during mating season." Burke stated his claim, crossing his arms and turning neck about, his eyes noticeably dilated.

"_It's a mining colony where Ukoirnas is mining the metal used to make the armor of the War Drum suits."_

"And he's using slave labor for it." Brooklyn placed her hand beneath her chin.

"Damn, it's all starting to make sense, now." Burke turned his back on the fore of the ship, his hands on his hips as he cleared a 'U' shaped path in the midsection of the ship in intrigued thought.

"_With your consent, I will transfer blueprint files for the defenses and interior of the Ble-Gan mining colony."_

"Brooklyn, Burke!" Darius nudged both of them. "What if it's a virus he's sending us? This ship's cyberwarfare aegis is positively outdated."

"Darius, go clean the crumbs out of the captain's quarters, will you?" Brooklyn looked back at him.

"That's hilarious, Brook." Darius scoffed.

"NOW."

Darius shrugged and stepped back a few paces to where Brooklyn could not sense his presence anymore, though enough to listen in on the conversation.

Brooklyn tried to run a trace to where this transmission was coming from, but to no avail. "You sure you don't want anything in return? Being an informant is a dangerous job."

There was a low pitched hissing that sounded vaguely like a sigh. _"I'm prepared to take my contempt for Ukoirnas to the grave, even if it means getting tortured and executed for treason."_

"We've been meeting a lot of staunch souls lately, haven't we?" Burke chuckled.

_"I have to leave in the next few minutes."_ A moaning high pitched mask radiated, then sank into a throaty bearer tone. _"Please make a quick decision. You're one of few I trust that could level this madness."_

Brooklyn witnessed the data transfer request on the holoscreen, nodding. "Very well, accepted."

"Shit, I can't look." Darius stepped into the bathroom to relieve the pressure that was building up in his bladder. Burke merely smirked at the display and went on to seat himself in the gunner's chair once more.

_"Listen."_ The voice sounded like a generic human male. _"If you require any more information, contact me during midlate and early galactic standard hours on this same frequency. I must depart."_

The transmission promptly cut off afterward, the interface becoming blank, and leaving Burke and Brooklyn partially astounded. "Jesus, we had an informant in Ukoirnas' outfit and we didn't know until now?" Burke groaned.

"You think the Citadel might be holding out on us?" Brooklyn picked her cigarette back up and shaved off the scorched tip with a flick.

"Who knows." Burke sighed. "I suppose we should just stick to waiting for those corsairs to stop tossing salad and rendezvous with us already. You be analyzing that data he sent you, check if it's legit."

She nodded, turning in her chair, just beginning to access the interface before Burke caught her off guard once again.

"And Brook?" He asked, as she spotted her turning in her chair once again. "Sorry for being a dick. Just think about what I said... in a well approached reckoning. Don't focus on the-"

"I'll be sure to not dwell on the vitriol." Brooklyn cut him off, smirking. Burke merely made a warm full smile, shrugged, and decided to shelve it for the time being.

"You're getting a little too emotive, Burke." He whispered to himself. "Gotta control those feelings, pal or you'll turn into an asari schoolgirl."

* * *

><p>The soul of her boot once again collided with the heavy sparring bag, followed by a vicious roundhouse kick from her other leg which sent it undulating back and forth from the steel chain that suspended it. A trio of onlookers bore witness to the display of skilled pugilism, and flinched as she concluded with a set of rapid punches.<p>

Owens swept off the sweat that gathered just above her brow, exerting so much, her sleeveless shirt and cargo pants were drenched as well. She gestured to the batarian to her left, who in turn nodded to a turian. As she went to gather a towel from a bench, they unzipped the bag, causing a human male to plop out, covered in both blood and bruise.

Lucille Owens draped the towel over her shoulder, and looked down on the half conscious man. "I find you stealing from a superior officer again, I'm gonna do this again, except load the bag with caltrops and acid, you fucking hear me private?"

The kid did not display any sign of acknowledgment other than to roll his head to the side, slightly opening his already blackened eye and blood running from his mouth. She firmly threw the towel over his face. "Get him to the infirmary."

_"Centurion Owens, please report to your quarters, you have a transmission from General Ukoirnas. Centurion Owens, report to your quarters."_ A male tenor voice blared from the intercom. Without looking back, she immediately head for the officer's quarters within the _Method_, the light cruiser she was stationed on.

Passing through the narrows, she came upon her room, rapping her sore knuckles against the door panel and turning on the lights. Her quarters were promptly messy, even the walls were littered with things. Posters on the wall outlined famous fist fighters and martial artists, such as the turian Appolonis Ayegon and a large one of human Bruce Lee, which she purchased on the 200th anniversary of his death.

Her personal laptop was still buzzing, and she immediately sat down on the stool near he cluttered desk and accepted the call. General Ukoirnas looked as stern and cold as ever, even in digital form. "Reporting, sir."

"Centurion Owens..." The turian commander spoke in a voice that would cause Admiral Steven Hackett's heart to skip a beat. "...your former significant other and his associates have really left me in a state of scorched-earth irascibility this past week."

"I'm sorry general." Owens gulped.

"Spare me. I did not contact you to pout to you, Owens." Ukoiras' mandibles fluttered. "Burke Craddock was last seen on Sundermount Station in the company of his retinue and supported by an unidentified crew of humans. He and his fellows eliminated several of our Wreta'Kurai allies and temporarily crippled our trust fund."

"He must be getting paid a lot to get people pissed off at him. First Eclipse and now us." Owen's brows sank to a devilish furrow.

"He's always angered me, Centurion. Insisting that he squander resources on hunting Alliance servicemen. I only let him because he always brought back looted equipment." There was a lengthy bridge of silence, merely the hum of the ship and the faint buzzing of the computer. "We found the elderly vessel he resides in. He seems to be heading towards Ble'Gan to inflict other mercenary sorcery and sabotage."

A smile curled upon the edge of her mouth. "I'll take care of him."

"Feel free to bring in the heavy artillery, if you wish. The methods of his elimination are completely up to you." Ukoirnas tilted his head downward, looking up at her from his forehead. "I hope you can contain any sentimental feelings for this."

"Fuck no, general. I never was just in it for the sex anyway, which was underwhelming." She tilted her head and gave a psychotic grin. "I know his weaknesses. This almost seems like cheating."

"All's fair in love and war." Ukoirnas tilted his head back. "Make sure his comrades are killed as well. Bring their ears, and that S.P.E.A.R brute's mandible. I could use some material trophies." With that, the transmission was terminated.


	25. In the Name of Mother Terra

**Chapter 24 – In the Name of the Mother Terra**

"Look, Alec. If we we actually knew that Wreta'Kurai ships were gnawing at your coattails we would have helped." Darius claimed, trying to appease the crew of corsairs.

"Like hell you would, birdman!" Beecher scoffed, leaning against the railing that straddled the command pit. "You turians as well as your politically correct, murderous human suck-ups are all nothing more than self absorbed little cun-"

"That's quite enough racism for today serviceman!" Alec shouted, his hand held out authoritatively. "Another outburst and I'll lock you in the engine room like a misbehaving child!"

They were all gathered in the CIC of the alliance ship. The interior of lieutenant Greyjoy's Arsuf class frigate was ultimately pompous and luxury-liner in quality compared to an aging corvette such as the Panera, sporting an ice blue tint, several up to date computers, a full holographic galaxy map, and quite a bit of elbow room for a delightful change. The interior temperature was also slightly warmer than the interior of the Panera, suggesting superior heating systems. Approximately twenty minutes after receiving the informants transmission, Burke, Brooklyn, and Darius were treated to the view of the SSV Jargeau after it exited FTL transit in the Century Omega cluster. An emergency meeting was called, and they promptly attached ships and boarded.

"Those pirate tugboats didn't stand a chance against the Jargeau, anyhow." Martello sat in the navigator's chair, sitting back as his right ankle rested on his left thigh in a relaxed pose. Gardner was the only one who was not making herself at home, as she stood in a military ease style with her hands behind her back. Beecher merely sat in the fiber floor in a safety position, a bitter grimace upon his face.

The crew of the Panera gathered on the far side of the operator areas, where Rodman sat, a blanket draped over her shoulders in a needless attempt to comfort her. Still, the weight of the naval issue blanket somehow allowed her to process the debriefing fluidly, possibly a sensory thing.

"The only thing that matters is that we didn't come out empty handed. Even if Penn and Korolev weren't part of the shipment of slaves we saw, we still know where to find them." Alec seemed to be pacing in a circle about the combat information center. "It's just a matter of how we're going to approach the mining operation on Ble'Gan."

"There's going to be plenty of innocent people that could potentially get caught in a crossfire, skipper." Gardner mentioned. "If we knew the layout, which we don't, we-"

"Don't speak so soon." Burke interrupted, grasping a small encased data disc and tossing it to the corsair. "Try this."

Gardner stared at the trinket, promptly stepping toward the galaxy map hologram and placing it in the auxiliary console. The map shrank into its lensing, a rust red ball expanding out with a green beacon glowing upon the edge of a small crater in the moon's midriff.

"Ble'Gan?" Alec mentioned, walking up to the control pedestal and manipulating the map with his hands, the view of the beacon expanding, which revealed a small cluster of structures. "Where did you get this?"

"The informant we told you about was generous enough to offer it to us." Brooklyn piped. "We burned the digital copy to that kordinite disc."

"Can we trust this mole?" Martello asked, standing up and viewing the map. "I mean, it looks pretty legit, but we don't really immediately put forth trust in anonymous bastards with masked voices."

"This whole thing sounds like it's going to be a bitch and a half." Beecher chuckled to himself.

Alec looked down at the others. "We still have to do it. Even if it means calling for assistance."

"Other corsairs?" Brooklyn inquired.

"Aye." Alec nodded. "It may take a while for them to arrive, however. We need them to evacuate all the slaves there. Anything's better than walking into an ambush."

"Send us in first." Burke interjected, a firm tone in his voice and a stony facial expression to match, this caught everyone's attention.

"Burke?" Brooklyn's eyebrow ascended at such blatant volunteering.

"You don't trust this double agent, but I do. If you send us in the Panera headfirst, we'll have a beachhead down momentarily, and if that doesn't work, we'll still suck up the majority of enemy fire, so it's all good for you." Burke placed his hands on his hips and walked closer toward the lieutenant.

"Burke when did you become an adrenaline junkie?" Darius asked, his distorted turian voice almost breaking.

"Once this whole contract started." Burke retorted, feeling the gazes of his crew members upon his back. Alec merely stood and shrugged, suppressing a boyish smirk.

"And how do you propose you avoid the two air defense turrets and the ground fire?" Martello asked, stepping in between his commander and the privateers with his arms crossed.

"Superior firepower." Darius reluctantly started to play along with the masochist mercenary sheet. "The solution to about nine tenths of all of life's problems. Including ex wives."

"And what kind of armaments is your Broadsword corvette sporting?" Alec questioned.

"One LAMAC cannon, sixteen MES24 "Lobster" homing missiles with depleted uranium warheads, and two M50G "Dauntless" missiles with dual mass effect focal charges.

"Dauntless missiles? The bugger you need those for?"

"The rainiest of days, lieutenant." Brooklyn concluded. Alec merely found himself looking at the hologram some more, focusing on the smallest of details.

"Well it's practically raining cats and dogs. They ever teach you classic dive bombing maneuvers in flight school?" He broke the silence.

"Once or twice." Brooklyn sighed.

"Good, because the best way to take out a Haliat armory AMT-VII turret is by going directly above it and taking a steamer on top of it."

Burke studied the corsair's eye movements as he was hooked to the image. "You mind telling us the entire plan, sir?"

Alec scratched his scalp and moved his ponytail down a few notches. "We need the infantry barracks and motorpool destroyed. You can use your Dauntless missiles for that."

"You know how much those things cost on the black market?" Darius snapped.

"Yes I do. That's why you should put them to good use." Alec cleared his throat. "Now the Jargeau's main gun is a bit on the underpowered side, which means it won't be a sufficient risk of killing civilians if we temporarily bombard the base from orbit."

"But there's still a risk!" Burke shouted.

"A practically negligent one." Alec firmly responded. "You're on my ship, so I highly recommend that you don't cause a scene. My crew really aren't fond of tense moments on a vessel they call home, so pay attention to what you say, lest you just so happen to find your way into the sights of Serviceman Beecher's assault rifle."

Burke merely caught a glimpse of a sneering Beecher as he held his hand behind his back in eager anticipation of a wrong move. The mercenary's cohorts were heard mouthing whispers for him to stop.

"Moving on." Alec cleared his throat once again. "After the base is pummeled enough, I will remain inside the Jargeau and move in and drop our Mako a klik or two outside the mining outpost, carrying serviceman Beecher, Gunnery Chief Martello, with Service Chief Gardner at the helm, and assault it from the east." He pointed slightly downward. "The Panera will land to the south while the amount of attention is polarized in the camp, and-"

"Free your friends for you stay comfy cozy inside your armored fucking assault vehicle, I know how this is going." Darius grabbed his pack after interrupting the commander. "Your plans are all so predictable."

"...And shut down the mining operation. Excellent case of ESP you have there, Mr. Macerdin." Alec stepped off the podium. "I wonder why the Turian military hasn't established a psychic program."

"Because they'd win all the wars." Beecher murmured, standing up and heading toward the ship's garage. Greyjoy was tempted to inquire whether or not there were any questions, but it seemed that the CIC was bustling it terms of movement, hinting that few were interested in offering queries.

"So, Miss Seltzer..." Alec approached Brooklyn as she studied the holo-map further. "Why is your ship named the Panera? Isn't that synonymous for breadbox?"

"That's correct, staff-lieutenant." Brooklyn studied the width between the structures as well as the atmospheric density. She looked him into his voidish iris. "Because all of her crew are chopped the fuck up. Pardon the profanity, and the superfluous metaphor if you will."

"Certainly." Alec responded, his hands on his hips as he stared offside, his lips retracted closer into his mouth in thought. "I'll excuse the fact that I have no idea what that means."

"Lieutenant, permission to speak in private sir!" Martello asked with a salute, not looking in the least bit enthusiastic.

"Sure, chief." Alec spoke, the unease of his subordinate rubbing off on him as he head for the captain's quarters, the gunnery chief following him.

Darius approached Burke as he rummaged through the formerly confiscated equipment that Darius and Alec brought back, picking up his shotgun and inspecting the thermal clip count.

"You excited for this?" The turian asked.

"What do you mean?" Burke compacted the shotgun and placed it on the lower part of his back.

"You get to kill some Blue Suns today." Darius' looked him dead in the eye, his mandibles fluttering. "If that isn't a happy thing to do I don't know what is."

"Kiss my hairy human ass, Darius."

Darius shook his head. "Come on, if anybody wants to get a chance to off some of these psychos, it's you."

Burke placed the pistol he had been fooling with on the table, one hand on his hip as he placed his index finger outward and faced his counterpart. "Darius. I'm quite sure I've told you this before, but since you have the memory span of an elderly milkcow, I'll tell you again: I don't actually enjoy killing people."

"Damn." Darius chuckled. "You remind me of police constables who run crying to a psychiatrist after shooting some armed convicted sex offender."

"You really like taking lives, Darius?" Burke asked, placing on hand on the table and leaning in.

"It's... complicated, Burke." The turian placed his hands behind his back, staring at the chrome ceiling. "I was young and psychotic. I was conscripted into the turian marines, then the Myrmidons, then the Special Echelon for Assault and Recon, and that's when I got my first two kills."

After a bit of silence, Burke decided to continue tooling with his Striker pistol. "Go on."

"I couldn't bloody sleep for two weeks. It was worse than seeing a horror vid." Darius sighed, his head hung low. "But... the more pirates I killed, the more smugglers the more slavers, the more rebels, the more assassins... I just began to realize that this was what I was meant for, no matter how hard it was."

"Ah yes." Burke peeled off the accelerator slide of his sidearm, inspecting its interior integrity. "The tired old, 'I'm good at doing something I hate, so I might as well keep on doing it' excuse."

"I just sometimes think..." Darius scratched his chin. "Maybe death would be pretty interesting..."

"Ah, yes. Your strange fascination with death." Burke holstered his heavy pistol. "I've heard this before."

"Guys. Working before jerking, remember?" Brooklyn stepped in between them. "Are you two going to be okay with this?"

"What do you think he has planned for that mining operation?" Darius quipped, seeing that Gardner had left the CIC and headed below deck.

"All I know..." Burke broke away from the group. "...is that the Council probably doesn't want us to hand over minerals like that to the Alliance."

Brooklyn began to follow. "What are you scheming, Burke?"

Burke leaned over and grabbed his messenger bag that was carelessly thrown on the floor. "You two stay here, I'm gonna take a gander through their armory."

* * *

><p>Alec took a seat near his personal computer in the quarters. His neatly made bed was a red ant in comparison to the generally messy room, with papers and files stacked about. His easel held an abstract painting he was working on in his spare time under a large light, filled with several transcendental images spawned from the numerous emotions he kept at bay. The upside was that every time he summoned a crew member to his quarters, they were not artistically savvy enough to interpret such vague and non descriptive imagery.<p>

Martello cleared his throat. "Sir, permission to speak freely."

"Just get to the point, Coulter. We're on a tight schedule." Alec opened a bottle of club soda and dropped a mouthful into his gullet.

"This... Burke Craddock... and Brooklyn Seltzer...they're fugitives. Traitors." Martello sighed, jittery, his head darting around as he rubbed the back of his head anxiously. "He's got the rest of the crew on edge."

Alec stood up, his eyes not making contact with the non commissioned officer as he head toward the painting to inspect it. "Just what do you want me to do about it, chief?"

The gunnery chief opened his mouth, as if to speak, then hesitated for a few seconds. "Just... nab them... after the mission."

"Martello. We simply cannot do that."

"Why the fuck not, sir?" Martello wheezed. "You mind actually telling everyone else why? They're murderers! Turncoats! I don't know about the turian... but the others-"

"Because they're the Citadel Council's umbrella. All three of those piratical stooges you saw..." Alec interrupted, taking one of his paintbrushes and running black oil paint along one of the more hollow areas. "...those traitors, those murderers... they rescued a ship full of volus bankers being held hostage by terrorists from the Attican Traverse. They're heroes in their eye."

Martello stepped closer to him. "They killed Alliance officers, lieutenant. Gardner and Beecher are really nervous about these guys. What are you gonna tell Penn and Korolev about this?"

"Craddock planned and staged the killings, chief. Seltzer had nothing to do with them." Alec corrected.

"But they put extraterrestrial values ahead of human ones!" Martello's face sunk into a frown. "Listen... I respect the council races and most other alien beings. But putting your humanity on the chopping block in favor for-"

"Chief!" Alec slapped his paintbrush in the middle of the color wheel and turned, crossing his arms. "You're going off subject."

He then headed back toward the seat near the computer, sitting down and leaning back, his chin planted upon his fist. "Burke is helping us. We're united against a common foe...

"When the time is right. Once his contract with the council has expired..." Alec took another drink of club soda, closing the cap and slamming it down on the counter. "...I swear on my father's epitaph, I will hunt him down, and bring him to justice. Mark my words, chief."


	26. Lunar Rust

**Chapter 25 – Lunar Rust**

A massive explosion kicked up the red dust of the terraformed moon up in the air, spiraling it in a whirlwind along the line of crouched slaves and their mercenary overseers. From a thirty-five foot command tower, the human commandant stood with his turian personal guardsman in the circular main room, surrounded by the emerald and amber glow of computers and the sweat stench of technical officers. The sky was an intense orange, and the clouds several shades darker and numerous, barely leaving a tantalizing glimpse of the ringed gas giant it orbited.

"I sure do hope Lieutenant Gnisis is correct." Commandant Rockholdt replied, scratching a scab on his bald head leftover from an altercation with an unruly slave. "With all the rationing my superiors told me to do with the mining charges, that damned vein had better be filthy rich, or I'm executing both Gnisis and the slave who found it."

The turian bodyguard nodded. "Yes sir. Whenever you feel like giving the word."

"Wicky, I like you and all but... you're a real brown noser."

"Ha!" The turian gasped. "Excellent point sir!"

"Shut the fuck up, Wicky." He stepped closer to the radar operator as he saw a few blips show up on his massive screen. "Meng, what do you have?"

The unarmored technical officer tapped a generic routine combination in his outdated plastic keyboard before the screen outlined two yellow circular signatures. "Two ships, commander. Just arrived into the system a minute or two ago." He turned to face him.

"Ukoirnas' mystery cargo he was telling us about wasn't scheduled to arrive until about fifteen minutes later." Rockholdt huffed, scratching the soul patch on his chin. "They're either damned early, or they got a hold of some fast ships or someth-"

The tower was struck by a frigate's mass accelerator round, the windows were pulverized, the lights burst into sparks and smoke, and two engineers immolating briefly, their armor and skin splitting off their bones, the latter were shattered in a concussive burst. The batarian air traffic controller was standing too close to the window, resulting in him being catapulted out to his death on the dust covered pavement below.

After the shockwave ran its course, Rockholdt opened his eyes back and began to struggle with his bodyguard who lay dead after being flung forward on top of him from the explosion, a hunk of circuit boarding lodged deep in the back of his skull.

The alarm sounded, and he could hear slaves outside panic, and the guards shout orders to herd them down into the mines. It later became clear that the commandant was the only survivor in the tower, unknowing whether this was a punishment or a blessing. Shortly after breaking free from the corpse that pinned him down, like a gasping fish fresh off the tackle, he stood up and flinched as another shot tore a hole into moon's crust between the barracks and the west wall.

"Orbital bombardment!" A distant voice from below, most likely one of the privates running the beat groundside.

"Oh really, smartass?" Rockholdt shouted, even if he was unsure if anyone could hear him. "Hunker down will you?"

* * *

><p>Alec hunched at the helm of the Jargeau, retracting the manual gunner controls and preparing for an entry. Two faces appeared in front of him on the holo interface in a split screen format, Brooklyn Seltzer on the left, and Coulter Martello on the right.<p>

"Final approach ready. Mako, get ready." Alec spoke.

"Aye, aye skipper." Martello piped, adjusting his helmet, Gardner doing the same in the background.

"Seltzer, you've got two minutes tops." The corsair lieutenant spoke over the communicator. Inside the Panera, its pilot was charging the afterburners at three fourths capacity. Burke placed his special operations helmet on his head and Darius was unsurprisingly mothering his tactical rifle like it was a toddler.

"When's the last time we did something like this?" Darius asked, looking at the orange in the viewports as the exterior of the Panera was immolated from the atmosphere.

"Akeron V, I believe." Burke plastered a mischievous smirk under his visor.

"Oh. Right. You know what? Forget I asked." Darius cleared his throat, rocking slightly in his seat.

"Too late." Brooklyn muttered, flipping her targeting monocle down and arming the corvette's missiles. The Panera was noiselessly screaming into the terraformed atmosphere of the terrestrial satellite, the Jargeau arcing from the Panera like the curved rightmost segment of a capitalized 'D' to perform a proper vehicle drop.

The vector visuals on the forward display caught the direct descent. The terrain was pulling apart in wire frames as the heavy fighter neared the surface, wire separating into different colored bars which color coded lengths of measurement. The interior of the Panera's stability ranged in duration from a massage chair to a bull at a rodeo near the middle of the descent. Several targets were locked and marked automatically, Seltzer immediately choosing between three, the hangar, the barracks, and the two AMT-VII turrets.

Darius on the gunnery controls, quickly cycled through them, the turrets being marked for the smaller Lobster rockets and the larger targets for the Dauntless missiles. Orange, pointed side down triangles marked each target, Darius made a numerical and armament cue for each target, the rockets firing first, followed by the dauntless missiles.

"Targets marked, Brook." Darius gasped. "Fire at will."

Brooklyn released the payload, the armaments flying downwards as she pulled up while under the clouds. The mining outpost's sensors had already picked up the corvette itself, turning upward and locking on. This was a short lived maneuver as the lobster missiles penetrated their shields and impacted into them, destroying them and causing the chiming warning signal within the Panera's cockpit to completely cease.

The larger Dauntless class missiles were slower, though collided not more than four or five seconds later into their destinations. The first crashed through the first floor of the barracks before detonating in a deafening explosion, blowing the mid section wide open and sending flames, shrapnel, and unlucky men and women at arms through the doors. The second was louder and far more destructive when it hit the motor-pool, the first armored vehicle pulling out when it hit, the roof collapsing and destroying the fuel and armaments within it. The shrapnel, fire, and material carnage had spread to nearby supply shacks, setting them alight, or being crushed by the weight of fallen debris.

On the surface, wounded lay screaming, moaning, and cursing upon the rust colored dust, as well as the deceased, whole or dismembered surrounding them. After the exterior stair exit had been damaged and knocked off by the Jargeau's initial bombardment, Rockholdt had to exit through the newly bored hole in the center of the command center's operations room. Dropping down into the break room on the second floor of the command tower, his feet landed in the charred partial remains of one of the operators above. Disgusted, he ran his feet along the carpet near the exit and stepped down into the undamaged half of stairs, reaching the battered surface.

Charily, his footfall avoided the scattered debris that was now blazing tinder, billowing sparks and smoke out of the fibers. The alarm was still blaring, though at strange tones and intervals, implying that the command tower's power system was damaged or malfunctioning. A batarian centurion emerged from the smoke skidding to a stop and placing his hand on his commanding officer's shoulder. "Commandant, are you alright?"

Rockholdt dislodged the mitt off his shoulder with a brazen maneuver, fury in his eyes. "Goddammit asshole, if you find anyone here who fits the criteria of being alright right now, then by all means let me know!"

The screaming of engines was heard high above, the Panera dropping forty feet before vanishing over the hillside, the other two sprinting in the general direction. "That was a salarian corvette!" Rockholdt tagged.

"Salarian?" A turian rifleman pondered, his mandibles fluttering. Before long, in a far lower altitude the Jargeau screamed overhead, the remaining Suns vainly opening fire upon it before it disappeared to the west.

"I know a human ship when I see one!" The batarian centurion cried. "That was an alliance frigate!"

"Damn it, is everyone and their step-sister attacking us?" Rockholdt bellowed, arming his carnifex hand cannon and wiping the sweat off his forehead.

"Sir! Armored vehicle spotted to the east!" A distant voice warned.

"Defensive perimeter, on the fuckin' double!" The human stomped out into the open seeing several of his men sprawled or crawling on the ground. Many lie still, many more writhed and yelled, missing limbs, filled with shrapnel or suffering burns. The scent was starting to pick up into a terrible stench.

"Sir..." The batarian shouted. "Half the forces are dead or wounded. The engineers are more or less gon-"

"Leave the wounded, centurion." Rockholdt snapped. "We can only afford to hold the line now."

The stomachs of those around him sank. The turian began to mutter. "But sir-" The commandant immediately trotted over to him, placed the handgun past his kinetic shields and to his temple, blasting a cavernous hole through his head.

Rockholdt turned to face everyone as soon as the cadaver fall flat on its back. "Less insubordinate queries, more defensive perimeters." He holstered his sidearm and quickly grasped the assault rifle from the corpse of his underling, turning and pointing it to all able bodied gunmen. "Chop, chop!" The rest of the mercenaries scattered and head toward the east wall as their commandant fired volleys into the air, screaming his lungs out.

After exiting the side of the vessel, Burke and Darius quickly ran to the apex of the ledge and lay prone, gazing upon the destruction they had wrought. Under his helmet, Burke's mouth was agape in shock as he looked on to the throngs of lying wounded as well as the dead. Some stumbled around like zombies, their ears deafened or their eyes struck blind.

Brooklyn crawled alongside Burke, holding her barracuda machine pistol by the fore grip as she maneuvered. She quivered at the sight. "My God... what did I just do?"

"We rained hell upon these poor innocent innocent souls who happen to be a bunch of bloodthirsty sociopaths." Darius snidely replied, his helmet transmitter making a crackling sound. "What a terrible thing we've done."

"Stow that shit, Darius. Jesus H. Christ..." Burke reprimanded, the last two words being drowned out by the explosive impact that battered a chunk out of the east wall, sending several of Ukoirnas' men into cover. The corsair Mako was bouncing along the rough east terrain firing the machine-gun on its small turret before, the shock absorbers on its six wheels shambling upwards and downwards along the dust and rock.

One Blue Sun trooper each clamored into the two guard towers along the east wall. These towers were assembled from lightweight, yet tough material and easily transported segments. The operator's compartments were one story over the walls, reaching around seven meters in height. The entrance was made from a steep and grooved ramp which could either be climbed or quickly walked upon. Inside the tower huts were scoped Rosenkov brand anti tank rifles, lying in wait for a user to point and fire at particular armored target. The Mako was a more than acceptable target for a weapon such as this, but a somewhat tough nut to crack as it was.

"_Caterpillar to Roach Team!"_ Martello shouted over the ops channel, wincing as a bolt from an anti tank rifle struck the vehicle's shields. _"We're almost there, make sure you introduce yourself to our hosts, we'll meet you at the front door."_

Burke placed his finger to his earpiece. "Affirmative Caterpillar, we'll make sure the south most usher goes for a coffee break. You can deal with the one north of him. Out." He spoke, noting the gunners in the towers. He then gestured to Darius and pointed at the tower closest to them.

"Does he like his coffee with cream or sugar?" Darius asked, standing up. After Burke gave him a contemptible stare, Darius nodded. "Right. Move out."

When their turian counterpart was descending the flattest part of the ridge, Burke began priming his shotgun. "Once the Mako breaches the perimeter, the Suns holding it are gonna break and regroup. We have to cut them off when it happens." Burke spoke, adjusting the heavy pack of explosives on his back. Once he did this, he saw that Brooklyn was still staring in horror at the field of bodies.

Burke grabbed her on the shoulders and forced her to face him. "Brook, snap out of it dammit!" He gasped. "You're supposed to be leading us." He made pauses between each word to make sure she got the point, grabbing the weapon that she set on the ground and placing it in her hand. "Those slaves need our help."

Brooklyn nodded, a second being the only time she needed to stand up and carry on. Burke followed her down, his weapon held in front of him.

As they were far too concerned with the armored vehicle that was assaulting their mining fortress, Darius was not able attract the eyes of the Blue Suns sentries when he was climbing the tower. The former special forces pointman grasped the military issue talon from the chest mounted scabbard, sneaking up on the trooper who had just fired a successful shot that completely took down the Mako's shields. Darius firmly grabbed his shoulder, kicked him in the back of the knee, and ran the blade across his neck, ear to ear. His helmet-less forehead was then slammed into the cusp of the rail, ensuring he would not struggle as he bled out.

As Burke and Brooklyn reached the bottom of the ridge behind the ruined barracks, they were immediately spotted by two troopers who were formerly shouting inaudible words at one another on the current situation. Both privateers opened fire, Burke's shotgun taking out their shields from the distance and Brooklyn's barracuda submachinegun digging into the meat of the two turians before they collapsed ontop of one another.

A shot from the Mako's main gun managed to strike inside the north guard tower's hut, killing the Suns trooper inside. The remaining Suns at the wall resorted to firing rifle mounted grenade in hopes of stopping the vehicle in its tracks, which proved futile. Gardner put the controls on full speed and slammed through the east gate, a single Blue Suns trooper firing a grenade into its side. The mid wheel axel was slightly damaged as a result, as was the midleftmost wheel, which would only slightly hinder the movement. Inside, the metal of the hull still sang and the ears of the corsairs inside rang. Martello on the gun controls brought the turret around and sprayed rounds in the shooter as he fled.

The Suns were regrouping, being cut down by the weapons of the Mako and Darius' hybrid rifle. Burke and Brooklyn cut them off, the former tossing a high explosive disc grenade into their path and detonating it. This sent the most crowded section spreading apart like droplets of splashed water. The screams of those they killed varied in pitch and were reminiscent of the cries of the damned.

* * *

><p>"<em>Caterpillar to Horsefly, we've breached the wall, I say again, we are inside. Initiating go-code Bravo."<em> Aboard the Jargeau, which had returned to low orbit, Alec's chin rest on his fist as he listened to the chatter of his underlings. The door to the cockpit opened behind him, Sally walking in, concerned.

"Miss Rodman, please wait in your quarters like I asked you to." The lieutenant requested, turning his head and switching the transmitter off temporarily.

"Listen, I really have a right to know what's going on." She bit her upper lip.

"Not when Alliance corsairs are involved." He stood up. "Everything will be alright, we have this under control, I'm sorry but you need to leave. Now."

Reluctantly she was escorted back to her quarters, complete solitude temporarily within the cockpit and its muted transmitter inside. With no one to see the rough seats, the glow of computers, the blackness of space, or the red triangle that showed up on the sensor, marking the Blue Suns vehicle transport which made way for the Ble'Gan's atmosphere and toward the outpost.


	27. Cat and Mouse Part 1

**Author's Notice:**

**Though I haven't been getting any complaints yet, I wish to apologize for the incredibly sloppy editing and grammatical errors in the earlier chapters. Furthermore, I should apologize even more for my laziness in not fixing them. I'm certain the poor paragraphing, random forum code (from my initial Mass Effect Fanfiction Forums posting), the grammar, and even plot holes (seriously, why the heck did I call Burke 'Evan' in the second chapter?) have drawn people away, and I can't say I really blame them. Expect edits in the future when I finally get off my keister to do so.**

**Also, please somebody review my chapter. I will stop posting new content if you all don't. :(**

**Heh. Just kidding. This story is going to get finished with, or without reviews. Though I admit, it still would be pretty nice if I got a few from my dear readers. :)**

**Now have a cup o' joe, sit back, relax, and read the longest chapter in Cyan Steel yet!**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 26 – Cat and Mouse (Part 1)<strong>

The knife's edge severed the piece of the fine cuisine from its larger body, the fork descending in to spear and take claim of the segment. The piece of amber colored resin was laid within the maw of Ukoirnas, where eventually the entirety of the dessert would meet its fate.

The Maul's starboard-stern observation deck was more opulent than it should have been, with a golden ceiling, white ivory walls, deep red asari carpeting trimmed with silver, and a massive vanilla white wood table, draped in a large cloth. Near the edge of the room beside the beverage box were two sofas and an oak billiards table. This lavishness was only further fortified by Tchaikovsky's 'Vals de la flores' that played on the overhead speakers. The outer doors were closed The general primarily used this chamber for meetings, officer-only dinners or having a thought in solitude while his personal guard stood outside and warded off drunken crewmen or soldiers that wanted to pass out on the carpet or on top of the pool table.

After nodding to the checkpoint guards, Major Yardie entered through the automatic door, the small crow-like eyes of Ukoirnas and those of three other officers in the room with him turning to acknowledge his presence. "Mr. Yardie arrives!" Urkoirnas declared after sawing off another piece of the resinous desert. Griggs, the Chief Quartermaster for Ukoirnas' fleet of marauders was carefully shifting his movement as he aimed down the line of his billiard stick, striking the cue ball which tumbled a cubit and smashed into the five, paying the favor forward to the eleven and six.

Ironically, all aforementioned balls found their way into the pits as soon as Yardie opened the keypad operated liquor cabinet. Ukoirnas used a napkin to wipe his shell-like mug, making it proper as he turned to face his second in command. "Get me some Waldu 2174 will you?"

"One for me as well, if you don't mind sir!" Frigate commander Pollius spoke, sitting at the opposite end of the table. The purpose of his presence was not entirely evident to the major, though he had a decent idea of what it might have been.

"Now, now, commander. A drink is not necessary for you, since you're obviously here for business." Ukoirnas spoke, continuing to wither down the size of his dessert. "Present yourself respectably."

Though the commander was adequately puzzled at the general's hypocrisy, he would not dare make this opinion vocal. He was bold enough asking the major for a drink, but that was only because Yardie had a reputation of being easy to get along with, which was uncommon for most right-hand men, let alone Blue Suns. The batarian major withdrew a nearly pyramidal shaped glass of batarian ale as well as an ornate canister of turian wine, setting them on the table.

"I know it's out of place in this time to give you such bad news..." Yardie began. "...but we've lost contact with the Ble'Gan mining outpost."

Ukoirnas planted an elbow on the chair's arm, leaning over to his executive officer, a confident, almost condescending manner strewn about his expression. "They only hit harder than I thought they would. Trust me when I say that the problem is in capable hands." He signaled Grossin, the captain of his personal guard. "Bring the slab over here."

The turian captain nodded, gathering a smooth, sloped segment of refined metal and placing it on the table in front of commander Pollius. The general leaned over, facing his underling, the expression of one eye not matching up with the other. "Commander. This... is our very own metal; cyan steel."

"One of the strongest metals in existence." Griggs explained, firing another jab at his cue ball which bounced around and throttled a few other balls in its wake. He then stood up and placed the shaft end of his cue stick on the carpet, one hand on his hip. "It's a bitch and a half to penetrate, and we're proud of it."

Pollius nodded, reaching over and feeling of the material. "This what the War Drum armor is made of?"

"More or less." Ukoirnas nodded, leaning back and finishing his dessert.

"We wanted to make sure that you know..." Griggs continued, chalking the tip of his pool cue. "That your frigate, the Phasewalker will be getting five of the suits on board."

With this, Pollius was somewhat surprised, though extremely flattered. "I will see to it that they be put to good use." He nodded.

"Well, that's where you're wrong." Ukoirnas carved the remaining piece of resin into two halves, impaling one of them and looking toward the commander.

Pollius' mandibles perked up. "Do you mean these are defective combat suits?"

"Not essentially." He placed the slice in his mouth, chewing it. "It's just that starting now, the Phasewalker is under new management."

The shot rang out before Pollius was even close to displaying his reaction. The commander fell face first onto the sheathed table, his fringed head being slowly surrounded by purple blood. The slab of cyan steel sported a small, smoky hole where the single pistol shot that went through the skull of the turian landed, less than an inch deep.

Grossin holstered the pistol, stepping away from the back of the deceased Pollius' chair. Ukoirnas had just finished the final piece of resin as he picked up the plate and set it elsewhere. "Cowardice holds no rewards. He should have eradicated those salarian ships, chased down Craddock, and finished it right there, but he didn't."

Two enormous, fully armored bodyguards strolled in through the blast door after it popped open, walking over to the table and picking all the objects off of it, setting them to the wayside. They then picked up the commander's body and placed it closer to the center of the table, wrapping him in the tablecloth.

Ukoirnas took a sip of wine after pouring a glass, Yardie drinking batarian ale directly from the bottle, sampling it as he looked at the corpse of the turian. Both were now near the billiards table, the general clinking his glass into the others vessel. "Here's to the men I can trust. Those with spines."

"And what of those with brains, sir?" Yardie immediately queried. Tempted to question his superior a bit more than usual.

A cluster of wine was poured into the general's gullet. "For junior and middle grade officers, intelligence can only get them so far. Plus, we all know that commander Pollius is a few brains short right now."

Yardie uttered a fake chuckle, Grossin bursting into a small fit of psychotic laughter. Ukoirnas nodded slowly, laughing a bit as well. "I really don't know where I'd be without you all. My true band of brothers and sisters, as well as the six-hundred-fifty others who serve under me."

"Gee, I'm getting all misty eyed." Griggs cackled, setting the pool cue down and heading to grab a bottle of scotch as well as a shot glass with the blue suns logo taped to its side. The tawny colored liquid fell out of the lips and into the glass neatly, filling a third of it. The quartermaster's omni tool's pager chime rang off sharply. The glass was neatly set down on the edge of the table. "Be right back, gotta take a quick inventory. Take over for me will ya, Yardstick?" He pitched the pool cue toward the batarian major, who caught it with both hands, Griggs disappearing behind the blast door as it hissed within its egress. The cleanup crew with the wrapped corpse they carried followed behind, heading to eject Pollius' cadaver out of the nearest airlock.

While Yardie wielded the pool stick, Ukoirnas stood and gazed out the fifteen-by-eight observation window. The stars stared back at him, and the turian felt himself shudder. "It's almost as if they want me gone."

"Who does?" Yardie asked, lining up a shot to the que ball, which was parked very close to a cluster.

"The stars." Ukoirnas added. "They're like a myriad of angry eyes belonging to a morbid god."

"I see..." Yardie muttered, pulling the cue back and forth. "...do you think you've done something wrong to warrant this observation?"

"Getting psychological on me, eh Yardie?" Ukoirnas chuckled. "I can diagnose myself..." He took a sip of wine. "I have done nothing wrong. As a human proverb speaks, evil is in the eye of the beholder."

Yardie did not answer. He took a stab at the cue ball which grazed the flanks of the cattle spheres and met its end in a corner pocket. None of the other balls went in.

Ukoirnas continued. "I merely am who I was wrought to be. I chose this path, and others, be they friends, bureaucrats, or enemies helped me shape who I am. Each were hands that melded the clay of my personality." He turned and glared at him. "The same happened to him." He pointed toward his bodyguard commander. "As for him." He then beckoned toward the escort frigate out of the window. "Everyone onboard that ship. Everyone under my command, the entirety of the galaxy. That is who we are. That is chaos. We are the agents of chaos."

Yardie propped the cue against the edge of the table. "I can't be certain I identify as an agent of chaos, general."

Ukoirnas' mandibles fluttered. "Of course you don't. Every varren beast has its share of compassion. You are that soul trait in my organization." The general smirked. "Speaking of chaos, I do admit, I am tempted to go check on the progress of Ble'Gan's situation." He downed the rest of his wine. "If you want..."

"I think I've earned myself some rest and relaxation, general." Yardie explained.

Ukoirnas tilted his head toward the ground, his mandibles dancing. Somehow, this angle caused his face to be bathed in shadow. "But of course you have. See you later."

By the time the blast door closed behind the general, Yardie was left abandoned in deep thought.

* * *

><p>Burke's omni tool initiated a failure message on his second attempt in hacking the security panel beside the very large door to the mining area, which was built into the caveside. The terraformed winds of Ble'Gan shrieked overhead, schlepping the dust around the nearly razed mining outpost.<p>

"I said leave this to me!" Gardner yelled over the channel while inside the Mako, fiddling with her superior omni-tool. "The more you dick around on your end, the tougher it is for me to actually get something done."

"Just trying to help." Burke replied, his gloved hand leaning against the concrete segment of the wall. At the time, Gardner had broken through two of the internal computer nodes, effectively hacking into the system.

"Craddock, I'll be willing to bet my tits that you know about computers and hacking as much as a flamingo knows about naval aviation." The utility screen of the Mako lit up, granular surveillance footage being tapped through it. Five armed Sun troopers sat inside behind swirling orange energy barricades which were divided into large triangular segments. Quickly, Gardner forwarded the feed to the omni tools of her compatriots. "Get a load of this."

"Looks like quite the slumber party in there." Martello was outside with Beecher, the latter stepping around the ruins and executing the wounded mercenaries with his assault rifle. No one else was sure what to think of this action, especially Brooklyn, who was certain the marine was not doing this for the sole satisfaction of ending their suffering.

Darius switched off his omni tool, speaking over the channel as he secured the east perimeter. "It's all clear over here. Just bodies. Better get in there quick, I'll be right behind you sooner or later."

"Affirmative." Martello replied. "Juding by the schematics there should be another entrance at the top. We can bypass these- Burke... what are you doing?"

Burke had already grabbed two timed charges from his pack and stuck them in the center of the door. "Fire in the hole!" He screamed, running in the other direction. Martello shouted some sort of profanity so loud that his vocal chords seem to strain enough to where the words were indistinguishable. Brooklyn hopped behind the closest piece of debris, landing shoulder first, her legs arching down just before the charges had detonated.

The explosion was both chaotic and properly destructive, large enough that the Mako vehicle bounced back two meters and rocked back and forth. The mercenaries behind the door were knocked back by both shrapnel as well as the concussive shockwave that carried it.

Darius saw the explosion from the east wall, feeling his bones shake within his skin. "You all better tell me what the hell happened over there!"

Burke's ears rung as he stepped up, pointing his pistol toward the gap through the smoke and steam. Martello, still muttering curses under his breath, produced the sniper rifle from his back, adjusting the sight to switch to thermal vision as he peered through the hole. A spray of gunfire launched out from within, Burke ducking and Martello pounding a hole through the lump of orange and yellow with his precision rifle, a Blue Suns trooper. Beecher rounded along the intact segment of the massive door, leaning his body through the hole and firing a myriad of rounds until the rifle itself overheated. This display of gunfire dispatched the two surviving Blue Suns legionnaires.

Beecher leaned back against the exterior wall, pointing inside and making a decapitation gesture along his neck. Martello nodded, standing up and walking toward Burke, who was stepping to his feet, brushing the dust off his armor. "Craddock." The gunnery chief began. "You have no idea how much I want to blow your nads off right now."

Burke made no vocal response, spreading his legs apart and holding his hands up with a smirk. "My testes are all yours, chief, just gotta aim and yank the trigger."

"Guys?" Brooklyn sighed, stepping in between them, she stared at Burke. "Our work isn't done here."

Martello leaned his ear into two fingers. "Caterpillar to Horsefly, surface secured. Initiating go-code Charlie."

"We'll take it from here. You all stay up here and wait for the cavalry." Burke spoke, mashing his finger to his ear bead. "Darius, we'd love it if you joined us."

"I think I'll take the alternate entrance in rather than stride into the deathtrap that awaits in that route." Darius responded heading over to them.

"Suit yourself, Dare." Brooklyn spoke, entering the breach. "Burke, get in here, watch your step."

With that, they both disappeared behind the smoke and into the interior. "You really sure this is a good idea?" Beecher asked.

Martello huffed. "He's Burke Craddock for crying out loud. He probably lives on a balanced diet of baby heads and the blood of virgins, knowing that crazy murderous psyc-"

The communications bud whined in the ears of the three planetside corsairs, their commander trying to contact them. Alec was yelling before Martello could acknowledge the fact that the former had broken his end of radio silence. "Horsefly to Caterpillar and Roach! You have a hostile dropship coming down on you from the northwest, get dug in!"

"Uh, acknowledged. Why didn't you tell us sooner, skipper?" Beecher asked, watching the sky, his eyes spotting the ship in question. "Damn. I see it."

"That ain't no infantry dropship!" Gardner identified, using the Mako's zoom sensor. Unwittingly, she spotted three mobile signatures drop out of it. Her eye twitched and her heart skipped a beat.

Martello aimed through his scope toward the sky, adjusting the distance. Sweat rolled down his neck and a chill paraded down his spine. "Definitely not an infantry dropship..." He gulped. "Skipper?"

"Hang in there!" Alec shouted, unlocking the controls and bringing the Jargeau down. "I swear on my mother if you aren't all fighting like you've never fought before down there, I'll make you pay for it!" The frigate began to tremble as it adjusted to gravity and exterior atmosphere. "Is Craddock down there with you?"

"He and his little whore went down into the mine. I don't know where the fringehead is." Beecher responded, aiming down the rifle's sights at the three approaching figures. "Skipper is there any way we can get the friendly reinforcements here soo- oh... oh- OH SHI-"

Gardner had begun putting the Mako in reverse as it was hit by two heavy mass accelerator rounds and a single missile, bursting the shields and causing the entire front of the Mako to catch fire for half a minute. A missile impacted to the right of Beecher, the concussion lugging his body into the ruins of the barracks, and a heavy rifle round tore Martello's left leg off below the knee as he fled for the wreckage. He collapsed as the flying dust surrounding him, lying grimacing and fighting off screams along with other wounded hostiles.

The Mako's wheels locked into a twenty degree turn, rounding about and crashing its backside into the battered command tower. The flames were dying down slightly, but the scene still looked visibly war torn.

The jet thrusters on the back of the War Drum suits slackened their acceleration, causing the three of them to descend in a near perfect triangular formation. The soles of six bulky boot pieces mashed into the ground in front of the mine entrance. Under the lead suit, Centurion Lucille Owens grinned like a comic book villain. The visor of the war drum suit was shut, requiring a vision software that allowed the user to see through the armored faceplate, this gave her face an eerie hot violet glow. She turned her head toward the gaping hole in the mine's door.

"Holy hell, they really went to work on this place, just look at it." One of the troopers laughed, completely unsympathetic to his wounded allies.

"Look for survivors, put them down, find their ships, blow them up. That particular sequence isn't mandatory, just get the job done. I'll be downstairs." The centurion huffed, firing a missile into the door and widening the gap.

The two men inside the suits, one a human, and the other a turian wordlessly complied. The turian activated his jets once again, soaring above for a lookout while the other merely stepped across the wastes and searched for any signatures from ground level.

Martello gasped, fighting back tears and throes out of ache and affliction. If anything caused him to grimace in agony the most it was the irony of being scrapped along with the enemy wounded and dead, looking just as mutilated as they were. He placed his hand on his ear bud, trying to keep as still as possible. "Beecher. Come in." He whispered, straining. "Gardner? Are you there? I'm hit bad." He placed his hand on the top of his helmet and his face in the dirt. He could not stand the prospect of being alone with only wounded and enemy shock troops to accompany him during his likely fate. His stump was suffering slight cauterization, which reduced and slowed the bleeding to some extent. "Craddock, Seltzer. Can you hear me?"

There was no answer. The two privateers likely had their communications signals congested or blocked entirely by the underground rock. He pounded his fist into the dust, trying as quickly as possible to accept his coming fate.

"Take it easy, shooter." A deep and slightly distorted voice hissed over the channel, one that could only be that of a turian's. "Keep still and they won't be able to find you."

Martello gasped, slightly relieved. "Macerdin, is that you?"

"The one and only." Darius responded with a grunt, tossing the hefty anti-tank rifle he liberated from one of the guard towers up the gash in the command tower's floor to the operations floor. He grasped a bit of rebar that stuck out the lip of the hole and hoisted himself up to the top floor. Along with the corpses, he made a note of the suit jockey that hovered by the window, Darius merely lying down and playing dead as he passed by.

Afterward, he stood up, hastily snatching the anti tank rifle with both hands and propping along the sill of the shattered window, the barrel breaking off the jagged bits of insulated glass as it was stuck through. Looking through the scope he had clear views of both suits, as well as Martello among the dead and dying.

"I see you, chief. You got any medical supplies that you can sneak into your bloodstream without them noticing?" Darius asked.

"Two doses of medigel, one morphine, three adrenaline." Martello sighed, resisting the urge to look at his wound again.

"Take a half dose of morphine. The medigel isn't going to heal that stump, and adrenaline isn't going to help at all." Darius lined his sights up to the back of the airborne shock trooper's jetpack.

"Yeah I know what it'll do, you don't have to tell me." Martello looked around him, noticing the grounded cyan-steel clad trooper had passed him by a few meters.

"You're a tough little prick, Martello." Darius placed the tip of his finger on the trigger as he aimed. "Keep still and I'll try to keep them off of you."

He fired the large weapon, the high charged round blowing a hole through the jetpack of the trooper, rupturing the dynamos of one of its burners. The bottom of the jetpack spewed smoke and flames and the armored suit twirled around, one heel over his head as he eventually hit the ground. By the time the other shock trooper opened up on the tower with all of his armaments, Darius had already regrouped to safety.

* * *

><p>Burke's boot hit the ground inside the cavernous slope, being surrounded by water ankle deep. "What the hell is it so wet down here for?"<p>

"It's likely a side effect or issue with the moon's terraforming system. Moisture and condensation." Brooklyn responded, reluctantly putting her leather boot into the icky cave water.

"Never knew you were the science type." Burke chuckled, his visor's radar circle scanning for signatures.

"I did what I could at Cornell to prepare for my law degree." Brooklyn activated her omni tool, accessing a rough copy of the area map. The mine itself was comprised mostly of several tubular metal tunnels and large areas of rock and water. "College general ed sort of required to take something like chemistry, so that's why I remember. Anyway, this part of the mine is more or less dry."

"Yep!" Burke scoffed, his foot stomping into the water and spraying droplets over both of them. "Sure is dry here! Dry as a dandruff ridden scalp!"

"Burke cut it out!" Brooklyn groaned. "I meant in terms of the minerals they were mining."

Burke wordlessly nodded, the bottom of his palm smacking into his helmet. "Silly me! Statistically I should have been able to realize you weren't talking about moisture, hence you using the word 'dry' when there's water all over the cavern floor. It's only necessary that I had to assume you were talking about minerals being depleted."

"Burke keep your voice down and watch out for hostiles." Brooklyn changed the subject, running the sights of her barracuda SMG along the darkness. She prepared her omni tool to fire a tech flare.

"Relax there's nobody there." Burke cackled. He turned his head and yelled. "Hey everyone! B.C. Seltzer here is terrible at using science and vocabulary together!"

"Burke shut the hell up! What's gotten into you?" Brooklyn gasped, dropping an orange tech flare into the darkness, illuminating the centermost area. Around mounds and pillars of rock were soaked mining equipment as well as several crates, supposedly to store and haul ore. "Fuck, and you wonder why I haven't let you get into bed with me for six months."

"Oh, just trying to lighten the mood, miss Seltzer." He approached the flare carefully as it hovered just a few inches above the wet rock, carefully checking the flanks, corners, and possible cover locations of hostiles. Brooklyn did the same, following shortly behind him. Burke then stopped suspiciously, cocking his head toward different directions.

"I don't understand why you're so tempted to do so under the circumstances, not excluding the fact that we're probably going to walk into a hostage situation at nearly any moment." Brooklyn finished her sentence right as Burke raised his shotgun, firing it just to the right of her. Just then, the top of the large crate behind him popped open, revealing a batarian brandishing a pistol. Brooklyn sidestepped let out a thread of automatic fire into the four eyed alien's chest and neck.

Burke pulled back the pump on his shotgun, a burning hot thermal clip leaping out the midsection of the small arm and producing steam once it hit the ankle deep water. Brooklyn looked behind her, seeing that Burke had dispatched a Blue Suns gunman that also ambushed them from inside a crate. They were slumped back down inside the crates, covered in blood and surrounded by smoke.

"Had I not had this radar software in my helmet, I wouldn't have known that these jokers were ready to pounce us." Burke moved to the nearest door, seeing a door to yet another metal tubular tunnel that led lower into the depths. Both of them felt tremors, some violent, which caused dust to seep from the supported ceiling and the floodwater to tremble.

"I thought we all took care of everybody up there." Brooklyn questioned, staring at the ceiling.

"You shouldn't be at all surprised if there were a few isolated pockets of resistance still duking it out topside." Burke pressed his back against the rocky wall beside the circular blast door, Brooklyn taking the opposite side for a breaching maneuver.

"You know, to be honest, I'm kind of surprised we haven't run into any booby traps yet." She smirked.

"Could you have jinxed us a little later? Perhaps earlier? For fuck's sake." Burke laughed, checking the door panel, seeing that it was unlocked.

"No, seriously. I think all the engineers were killed during the bombing run." Brooklyn pulled the foregrip of the machine pistol back downward for increased stability and accuracy. "Plus, the Suns aren't big on guerilla tactics anyway, right?"

"Not really, but still, I'm not a big connoisseur when it comes to unpleasant surprises. Get ready." Burke pat the panel instrument, the door hissing open.

They both pointed their weapons through the open ingress. As was expected, it was yet another tubular hallway that descended in a tilt. Except that the water had leaked through, sending a small, thin stream of H2O that trickled down toward the bottom. The stream had left a rusty stain that stretched from top to bottom, eventually trickling down into a gutter at the foot of the door at the end of the passage. The pipeline was lit by overhead lights that

Burke nodded to his associate. "Cover my back Brooklyn, I'll go in fir-"

There was a high pitched hiss followed by an explosion behind them, which caused their shields to burst and launched them both into the passage, the slick rusty path lubricating their descent as they slid down, cursing and rolling on top of one another.

Owens stood in the armored suit, the shoulder mounted missile launcher still smoking. She activated her loudspeaker, and stepped to the door. "Welcome back, Burke! You never told me what your middle initial stood for. Could it be Judas?" She readied her heavy rifle as she closed in on the entrance. "Well we're gonna give you, your new bitch, and your turian ass-pal a little more than just Barabbas. En guard!"

* * *

><p>Gardner woke up rather viciously, spitting blood into her lap. The confusion was added to more as the interior was slightly smoky, possibly what woke her up. She tried to calm herself as she climbed out of the corner she was launched into once the Mako had crashed into the side of the command center. She coughed and wheezed, stumbling and kneeling beside the controls. She calmed considerably once she realized that her bleeding was the result of a laceration on her lip rather than internal trauma.<p>

"Gardner to Martello. Beecher. Greyjoy, anybody." She spat. "Do you copy? Is anybody alive out there?"

Darius was sprinting out of the building once hostile eyes were not onto him, he sprinted away toward one of the utility shacks that was partially destroyed, peeking out of a gaping hole in the back, surveying the scene. "This is Macerdin." He spoke, propping the anti tank rifle on the bottom of the gash. "Thought you were a goner, service chief."

"I intend to stay alive until I get my first kiss." Gardner chuckled, wiping her lip.

"Wait, wha- nevermind." Darius now saw that the suits were attempting to clear the interior of the command center with their shoulder mounted launchers. "Martello, you still with us?"

"Pretty good…" The gunnery chief responded, a cloud of relaxation and laughter in his voice.

"Martello I told you to give yourself a half dose of morphine, it's sounding like you cleared out the syringe there, buddy." Darius sighed.

"Wait, what happened to him?" Gardner gasped, accessing the master HUD of the Mako and checking the structural integrity.

"He's minus a leg, Gardner."

"Oh my God."

"Yeah, you better pull your Mako up and stabilize him, you think you could do that?" Darius murmured, shifting the rifle to the right as he lined the sights of the grounded suit, his jetpack still billowing smoke.

"What about those armored bastards?"

"I'll continue to at least draw them away from you. How's your medical training?"

"I'm not a qualified field surgeon like Korolev, but… I can keep him alive."

"Beautiful. How's the gun on that thing, does it still work?"

"Yeah. The hydraulics are still functioning, and the munitions are-"

"Okay, okay listen. You gotta take at least one of them out for this to work, how close are you to him, I know he's on your side of the building."

"Okay, I… fuck he's really close!"

"How close?"

"Want me to let you talk to him? He's right beside the freaking Ma-"

"Unload on him! Swing that turret around and light him up! Do it, do it, do-"

Gritting her teeth, she activated the gunnery cache, swinging the turret to the left and strangling the machinegun trigger. The majority of the shots did not penetrate the armor, though the fire was extremely rapid as the suit staggered back, not even his jetpack able to get him out of the situation. Gardner then finally pulled the other trigger, firing the main gun, which broke through all layers of armor and shattered the interior operator's head like a melon.

Darius fired the rifle, the heavy round hitting a sloped section of the armor, which tilted the fire and bounced off. The jockey turned his body around and unleashed firepower on the general area behind him, Darius already sprinting away. The firepower of the heavy rifle was cogent enough that it passed through several sections of wall in the cluster of utility shacks, one smashing through the wall Darius was close to while he fled, bursting out just behind him.

"Fucking hell! How long have I been out?" Beecher yelled through the intercom, sounding as if he was struggling and disoriented.

"Finish your nap already?" Darius snidely derided, winded by the weight of the anti tank rifle which slowed him down.

"Beecher I need your help getting Martello inside the Mako." Gardner ordered, driving toward the position of her fallen squad mate, the wheels grinding over two corpses of deceased Blue Suns.

"What the heck happened to him?" Beecher climbed over the rubble, limping as he got into the street, a piece of shrapnel lodged in the side of his calf muscle.

"He's been hit!" Gardner spoke, climbing out of the Mako's side hatch and leaping out.

"Big deal, I'm hit too!"

"Shut the fuck up, Beecher!" She knelt beside Martello, checking his pulse with her omni tool. He was near death, having lost six pints of blood."

Beecher managed to reach her position by that time, turning his vox communication off. "Oh… wow." The marine's face sank into a look of contriteness. "I didn't know-"

Gardner gave him a glare that would have caused a bird to shed all its feathers. Beecher nodded and began to turn their gunnery chief over on his back, putting his legs up while the service chief unpacked her field dressing and a tourniquet and began wrapping Martello's bloodied stump.

The turian inside of the armor sprinted east, looking around down through the digital yellow crosshair that moved wherever his heavy weapon pointed.

Suddenly his visor screen exploded in his face, an anti tank round grazing the side of his head. He yelled and opened his faceplate, blinking due to temporary blindness. Smoke was now rising out both the pack and from the helmet piece as it rose from the interior compartment.

Beecher had already tore out of his position once Martello was in the safety of the battered Mako. He toggled through the settings on his rifle, switching his rounds to incendiary. He then aimed down the scope and strangled the trigger, letting rounds loose into the cyan steel armor. "Burn you fringe-headed bastard!"

"I resent that!" Darius yelled back, expending another thermal clip and aiming at his back. He clenched the trigger, nothing but an unresponsive click. The gun had either misfired or ran out of disposable heat sinks, and Darius did not exactly care at this point, tossing the rifle aside and bringing out his tactical hybrid rifle.

The shock trooper's armor was partially on fire, his weapon had been shot up as well, jamming as a result. Beecher's rifle overheated, hissing steam and beeping. He threw it aside, grasping his assault shotgun from his lower back, assembling it and charging toward him like a jaguar.

The turian shock trooper opened his eyes, activating his omni tool and firing his last two missiles from the launcher. The armaments had to be aimed manually, as his targeting software could not lock.

The first one soared beside his head and the second hit its mark, the missile exploding into his left shoulder, encompassed by smoke, shrapnel, fire, as well as the dust, which was kicked around by the concussion.

"Beecher? You there?" Gardner yelled from inside the Mako.

Darius thought about telling her what had happened, but he decided it was not a necessary topic in the middle of a fight. He crept closer to him, going in a full on run. As if the other turian anticipated his move, he made a vicious backhand with his massive suit gauntlet, knocking Darius at least ten feet back. He landed rolled about, his hybrid rifle landing a few yards from where he was. He grasped his stiletto pistol from his hip, cocking it and aiming toward the shock trooper as he trudged in to kill him hand to hand.

The sound of several ships echoed through the atmosphere, becoming steeper in pitch and louder as they no doubt drew closer. The other turian stopped, and both looked up to see the Blue Suns dropship that carried them out tumble through the sky high overhead, eventually crashing in a fiery explosion. Two frigates flew overhead in chase, no doubt making sure their target was destroyed.

"Good shooting Inchon! Mursa Major get your boys down there!"

There was a massive crack, and the ground shook as another Mako was dropped on top of the steel clad, his head pinned between two of the wheels. The frigate that dropped it flew toward the west end of the base, setting down and dropping a small handful of troops and engineers.

"St. Lucia to Jargeau, go ahead and land in the center of the outpost and get your wounded out of there, we've got the flanks."

Darius stood up, walking over to the pinned suit. The turian inside looked up from inside his armor, breathing heavily. His mandibles fluttered and he turned his head to the side, and a single shot to it from Darius' pistol ended ensured a short end to his career.


End file.
